Posts tagged "Downing Street"

1922 committee: loyalists and critics both win

Modernisers gain ground but fail to take key posts in Tory party’s 12-strong executive

Supporters and opponents of David Cameron achieved a score draw in elections to the executive of the 1922 committee on Wednesday, which were seen as a test of Tory backbench mood amid fears that Downing Street is losing its touch.

A bold move by loyalists to achieve “seismic change” in the elections, by removing “bloody rude” members of the old guard, achieved partial success when some critics of the prime minister were unseated. But the modernisers on the 301 Group, who had published a slate of candidates that was handed out to MPs as they voted on Wednesday afternoon, also suffered some setbacks.

The 1922 committee is the Conservative equivalent of the Parliamentary Labour party (PLP), the elected members’ trade union branch, where grievances are aired and interests defended.

The main battle for the two coveted secretary posts on the executive of the 1922 committee, which is open to all Conservative MPs not serving in government, resulted in a draw. Karen Bradley, who was on the 301 Group slate, won a post. But Charlie Elphicke, a Cameron loyalist, was beaten to the other by Nick de Bois, a popular figure with all wings of the party who was not on the 301 Group slate. The Thatcherite Chris Chope, who had been strongly supported by the traditional right, was unseated.

Afterwards De Bois tweeted: “Delighted to be elected to 1922 Comm and thank you to all those who lent me their support. Congrats to my Executive colleagues as well.”

Members of the 301 Group succeeded in unseating some of Cameron’s main critics from the 12-strong executive. Peter Bone, the MP for Wellingborough, who recently toned down his criticisms of Downing Street, lost his place. But Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the Commons public administration committee, who had been targeted by the 301 Group, survived.

Jenkin was helped after Nicholas Soames, the veteran Tory MP, and Tracey Crouch, a moderniser elected to parliament in 2010, announced that they would be standing down. Crouch criticised the 301 Group for the “factionalisation” of the elections to the 1922 committee.

The 12 members of the executive represent a mix of the 301 Group and those who were not supported by the group. George Hollingbery, who rebelled against the government in last year’s Commons vote on a referendum over Britain’s membership of the EU, succeeded with the support of the 301 Group.

But Robert Halfon, the MP for Harlow, who is respected as a campaigner, succeeded in keeping his place on the executive without the support of the 301 Group. Priti Patel, a Eurosceptic, showed that she will become a formidable force in the party after retaining her seat with the support of the 301 Group and traditionalists on the right.

Patel’s election allows the 301 Group to claim that eight MPs on its slate won election to the 1922 executive. In another significant blow to Cameron’s critics, Stewart Jackson failed to secure election. He has been a harsh critic of Downing Street since resigning last year as parliamentary private secretary to the Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson after rebelling against the government on the EU referendum vote.

Organisers of the 301 Group’s slate had expressed fears that they would face a backlash after a claim by one of its organisers that it hoped to shake up the 1922 committee. Kris Hopkins, the MP for Keighley, told the Guardian shortly before the local elections: “I am confident – I am not wishing to be arrogant – that there will be seismic change in the shape and the tone and the narrative which sits in the 1922. It should be to everybody’s advantage.

“You are just going to get a new breath of fresh air coming to an establishment like this. Those new people come from a different era in British politics.”

One of the organisers of the slate said: “We had been doing well organising an under the radar operation. The Guardian piece on the elections somewhat brought this into the open.”

One traditionalist said: “The slate was awful and a rather left wing tactic. That is what the Labour party does. Tories may have slates but they are informal and are never published.”

One moderniser said: “It all felt rather distasteful. It was rather patronising to a highly sophisticated electorate.”

The old guard did suffer a clear blow in the elections for the four Tory positions on the Commons backbench business committee, which decides business in the chamber on backbench days. Philip Hollobone, who had been targeted by the 301 Group, was unseated.

Cameron’s supporters avoided a backlash after a high turnout. Ministers cannot vote in elections to the 1922, but parliamentary private secretaries can.

1922 committee election: PM’s loyalists and critics share honours

Modernisers gain ground but fail to take key posts in Tory party’s 12-strong executive

Supporters and opponents of David Cameron achieved a score draw in elections to the executive of the 1922 committee on Wednesday, which were seen as a test of Tory backbench mood amid fears that Downing Street is losing its touch.

A bold move by loyalists to achieve “seismic change” in the elections, by removing “bloody rude” members of the old guard, achieved partial success when some critics of the prime minister were unseated. But the modernisers on the 301 Group, who had published a slate of candidates that was handed out to MPs as they voted on Wednesday afternoon, also suffered some setbacks.

The 1922 committee is the Conservative equivalent of the Parliamentary Labour party (PLP), the elected members’ trade union branch, where grievances are aired and interests defended.

The main battle for the two coveted secretary posts on the executive of the 1922 committee, which is open to all Conservative MPs not serving in government, resulted in a draw. Karen Bradley, who was on the 301 Group slate, won a post. But Charlie Elphicke, a Cameron loyalist, was beaten to the other by Nick de Bois, a popular figure with all wings of the party who was not on the 301 Group slate. The Thatcherite Chris Chope, who had been strongly supported by the traditional right, was unseated.

Afterwards De Bois tweeted: “Delighted to be elected to 1922 Comm and thank you to all those who lent me their support. Congrats to my Executive colleagues as well.”

Members of the 301 Group succeeded in unseating some of Cameron’s main critics from the 12-strong executive. Peter Bone, the MP for Wellingborough, who recently toned down his criticisms of Downing Street, lost his place. But Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the Commons public administration committee, who had been targeted by the 301 Group, survived.

Jenkin was helped after Nicholas Soames, the veteran Tory MP, and Tracey Crouch, a moderniser elected to parliament in 2010, announced that they would be standing down. Crouch criticised the 301 Group for the “factionalisation” of the elections to the 1922 committee.

The 12 members of the executive represent a mix of the 301 Group and those who were not supported by the group. George Hollingbery, who rebelled against the government in last year’s Commons vote on a referendum over Britain’s membership of the EU, succeeded with the support of the 301 Group.

But Robert Halfon, the MP for Harlow, who is respected as a campaigner, succeeded in keeping his place on the executive without the support of the 301 Group. Priti Patel, a Eurosceptic, showed that she will become a formidable force in the party after retaining her seat with the support of the 301 Group and traditionalists on the right.

Patel’s election allows the 301 Group to claim that eight MPs on its slate won election to the 1922 executive. In another significant blow to Cameron’s critics, Stewart Jackson failed to secure election. He has been a harsh critic of Downing Street since resigning last year as parliamentary private secretary to the Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson after rebelling against the government on the EU referendum vote.

Organisers of the 301 Group’s slate had expressed fears that they would face a backlash after a claim by one of its organisers that it hoped to shake up the 1922 committee. Kris Hopkins, the MP for Keighley, told the Guardian shortly before the local elections: “I am confident – I am not wishing to be arrogant – that there will be seismic change in the shape and the tone and the narrative which sits in the 1922. It should be to everybody’s advantage.

“You are just going to get a new breath of fresh air coming to an establishment like this. Those new people come from a different era in British politics.”

One of the organisers of the slate said: “We had been doing well organising an under the radar operation. The Guardian piece on the elections somewhat brought this into the open.”

One traditionalist said: “The slate was awful and a rather left wing tactic. That is what the Labour party does. Tories may have slates but they are informal and are never published.”

One moderniser said: “It all felt rather distasteful. It was rather patronising to a highly sophisticated electorate.”

The old guard did suffer a clear blow in the elections for the four Tory positions on the Commons backbench business committee, which decides business in the chamber on backbench days. Philip Hollobone, who had been targeted by the 301 Group, was unseated.

Cameron’s supporters avoided a backlash after a high turnout. Ministers cannot vote in elections to the 1922, but parliamentary private secretaries can.

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Leveson asks Downing Street if Coulson was only aide spared rigorous vetting

Judge requests full breakdown of security vetting status of media advisers to find out if issue represents a ‘smoking gun’

Downing Street has been asked to explain whether Andy Coulson is the only senior press adviser to recent prime ministers to have been spared high-level security vetting.

Lord Justice Leveson, whose judicial inquiry is examining relations between the government and the media, in particular News Corporation, said he wanted to find out whether the issue represented “a smoking gun”.

The former head of the civil service Lord O’Donnell also told the inquiry that the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, should have known if his special adviser was giving feedback to News Corporation on its controversial £8bn takeover bid for BSkyB.

The judge requested a full breakdown of the security vetting status of recent top Downing Street media advisers following revelations that the former News of the World editor received only mid-level security checks before starting work for David Cameron in government.

O’Donnell was responsible for security vetting when Coulson became the prime minister’s director of communications in May 2010. He oversaw the decision not to subject Coulson to rigorous “developed vetting” (DV) checks that involve testing whether there is anything in an individual’s background that might make him or her vulnerable to blackmail.

The Cabinet Office saidon Monday it was preparing a full list for the inquiry. Downing Street sources conceded it was likely to show that most of the previous incumbents of the role were subject to DV, or its equivalent, under earlier systems.

Coulson was allowed to operate with a mid-ranking “security check” level of vetting that allows only supervised access to the most secret documents. He told the Leveson inquiry last week that he nevertheless had unsupervised access to top-secret files.

The Guardian understands that most, if not all, of the senior media advisers to prime ministers from John Major to Gordon Brown were cleared to a higher security level than the former News International employee.

They include Sir Christopher Meyer, who worked for Major; Alastair Campbell and David Hill, who worked for Tony Blair; and Michael Ellam and Simon Lewis, who worked for Gordon Brown. Coulson’s successor, Craig Oliver, has also had DV.

Appearing after O’Donnell at the Leveson inquiry on Monday, Campbell said he underwent DV “very early on” in his job in government.

“It was just assumed that I would have to be,” he said. “In the transition there had been discussions and it was assumed that we would be involved in all the sensitive areas that Tony Blair would be taking charge of.”

Downing Street sources argue that the decision to exempt Coulson was made by Sir Jeremy Heywood, then Downing Street permanent secretary, as part of a wider policy of reducing the number of special advisers who had access to the most secret documents in order to improve the handling of sensitive intelligence and because the process was expensive.

O’Donnell told the inquiry a more rigorous DV of Coulson “wouldn’t have gone into enormous detail about phone hacking” but he said it would have investigated whether there was anything in Coulson’s background that might make him susceptible to blackmail. He said the vetting was also concerned with “your financial position and your personal life”.

He also said that as part of other routine checks, Coulson should have signed forms disclosing any shareholdings that could lead to conflicts of interest. It emerged last week that Coulson held shares in News Corporation, worth £40,000, while working as No 10 press chief. “A form was signed but it didn’t disclose shareholdings and it should have done,” O’Donnell said.

When O’Donnell said he couldn’t recall which of Coulson’s predecessors had been subject to developed vetting, Leveson said: “It might be worthwhile identifying if and when each of the comparative equivalent holders of that particular post received the higher level of vetting … only to demonstrate that there isn’t a smoking gun here. If there is, then there is.”

O’Donnell claimed that “quite often” press secretaries would start working for prime ministers with a lower level of security clearance than developed vetting.

“Some people who operate in that job would say: ‘Look, what I really want to do is get involved in the economy,’ a whole set of issues which basically didn’t go into the kinds of things where regular top-secret access was required, and they just wouldn’t want to go there,” O’Donnell said. “It quite often turned out that they would start off with that view, or, in this case, the No 10 permanent secretary would have that view, and then, as events changed, they would realise the first big terrorist event came along and then there would be a lot of papers which, by their nature, were all top secret, and then you would say, actually, this isn’t working, we need to give access to this.”

Simon Lewis, Coulson’s immediate predecessor, director of communications for Gordon Brown from June 2009 to May 2010, told the Guardian on Monday he underwent DV as soon as he took up his post. “To do my job I needed certain levels of access,” he said. “That was make very clear to me upfront. It was put to me that there are certain jobs that are so close to the prime minister that by definition you need it [developed vetting].”

Lewis said he was interviewed and had to submit names of friends and family who would also be contacted.

Sir Christopher Meyer also confirmed that he was cleared to the highest security level before he started as John Major’s press secretary in 1994 because he had previously worked as the deputy ambassador to Washington.

Brooks’s evidence puts pressure on Hunt

Culture secretary under pressure as email appears to show he asked Murdoch firm’s advice on dealing with hacking scandal

The embattled culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, came under renewed pressure when the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks disclosed an email appearing to show he had sought the company’s advice over how Downing Street should respond to the mounting phone-hacking scandal.

The email, which also suggests Hunt sought to avoid a public inquiry into phone hacking, emerged on another day of extraordinary disclosures about the intimacy between Rupert Murdoch’s company and government ministers.

The email from News Corporation lobbyist Frédéric Michel written in June 2011 told Brooks that Hunt was poised to make an “extremely helpful” statement about the company’s proposed acquisition of BSkyB, saying the takeover would be approved regardless of phone-hacking allegations.

Michel warned her, days before the Guardian revealed that murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s voicemail had been targeted by the News of the World, that “JH [Jeremy Hunt] is now starting to looking into phone-hacking/practices more thoroughly” andhe “has asked me to advise him privately in the coming weeks and guide his and No 10′s positioning”.

A culture department spokesperson said on Friday: “Jeremy Hunt will respond to this when he gives his evidence to the Leveson inquiry in due course. He is confident his evidence will vindicate the position that he has behaved with integrity on every issue.”

During five hours of testimony, Brooks revealed she dined with George Osborne on 13 December 2010, when she discussed Ofcom’s initial objections to News Corp’s £8bn bid. The objections had been sent in a confidential “issues letter” by the media regulator to her company three days before. Following a short discussion, the then News International boss reported to James Murdoch the next day that Osborne had expressed “total bafflement”.

In a steely and at times tetchy performance, Brooks said her lobbying of the chancellor had been “entirely appropriate” because she was “reflecting the opposite view to the view he had heard by that stage from pretty much every member of the anti-Sky bid alliance”.

But Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, said the email demonstrated it was “obvious that he was supportive of your bid, wasn’t he”, a suggestion Brooks rejected. The disclosures about her conversations with the chancellor will increase the likelihood that he will be called to appear before the inquiry. Of eight ministers who have submitted statements to Leveson, he is the only one not to have been asked to appear.

Though less damaging than some in Downing Street had feared, Brooks’ testimony also proved embarrassing for David Cameron. She revealed the prime minister signed texts “DC” or sometimes “LOL” – until she explained that the phrase meant “laugh out loud”, not “lots of love”.

She said she typically texted Cameron once a week, and twice a week during the 2010 election campaign, dismissing reports that he sometimes texted her up to 12 times a day as “preposterous” .

Brooks said any email correspondence between her and politicians was held by News International. She had only copies of emails and texts that were on her BlackBerry during six weeks in June and July 2011, but a single message from Cameron had been “compressed” and could not now be read.

Brooks confirmed she had socialised with Cameron at least twice within four days in Oxfordshire over Christmas 2010, towards the end of a year in which they had already met at least five times. The first contact of the festive season was a dinner at her house on 23 December, when there was a conversation about the BSkyB bid. The second was a previously undisclosed “mulled wine, mince pie” party organised by her sister-in-law on Boxing Day, at which she was unsure if she had spoken to Cameron or his wife, Samantha, although “my sister-in-law tells me they were definitely there”.

Although Brooks has been arrested in connection with phone-hacking and bribery investigations and on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, the inquiry heard she had discussed the growing hacking allegations with Cameron at some point during 2010.

She said the prime minister – who at that point was still employing former News of the World editor Andy Coulson – had asked her for an update. “I think it had been on the news that day, and I think I explained the story behind the news. No secret information, no privileged information, just a general update,” Brooks said. The disclosure will add to the pressure on Cameron to explain why he failed to challenge Coulson about the hacking allegations against him at any time after the Guardian broke the story in July 2009.

However, the most serious evidence to emerge regarded Hunt, whose fate has been hanging in the balance since Rupert Murdoch provided 163 pages of News Corp emails to the Leveson inquiry, which suggested that Michel had obtained a large amount of information about the progress of ministerial approval of the BSkyB bid. Finding a fresh email from Michel that had eluded Murdoch’s legal team last month, Brooks showed that she had been told Hunt would approve the long-delayed takeover because he believed “phone hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality issues”. Michel told Brooks the sought-after approval would happen later, in the last week of June 2011.

The accuracy of Michel’s predictions in his email was borne out in Hunt’s statement to parliament on 30 June, essentially approving News Corp’s bid for Sky. Hunt told MPs that “while the phone-hacking allegations are very serious they were not material to my consideration”. The News Corp bid was only derailed the following month following the public outcry after the Milly Dowler hacking revelation and the closure of the News of the World.

A spokesperson for the culture department said: “It has already been made clear that when Fred Michel has claimed in emails to be speaking to Jeremy Hunt that was not the case.”

Michel had said his repeated references to Hunt and “JH” referred to information obtained from his special adviser, Adam Smith. Smith resigned last month after Hunt said he had strayed beyond his remit.

Brooks was also questioned in detail about the Sun’s publication of a story revealing that Gordon Brown’s son had cystic fibrosis. She claimed she would not have run the story without the Browns’ consent, but the couple later issued a statement contradicting her account. It said: “The idea that we would have volunteered our permission or were happy that a story about our son’s health was about to enter the public domain is untrue.”

Coulson: Cameron asked me about phone hacking only once

PM is said to have sought no fresh assurances from former News of the World editor as phone-hacking revelations emerged

The prime minister’s judgment moved to centre stage at the Leveson inquiry after Andy Coulson, the former No 10 director of communications, revealed that Cameron and his staff sought no fresh assurances about Coulson’s conduct as editor of the News Of the World after the Guardian published stories in 2009 suggesting that phone hacking was rife on his watch at the tabloid.

Coulson also revived questions about why he was not subjected to the same level of security vetting as his predecessors when he told the inquiry he may have had unsupervised access to top-secret documents while working in Downing Street between May 2010 and January 2011.

Coulson’s evidence came as the Leveson inquiry began its six-week module examining the relationships between press and politicians, which will eventually see Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown give evidence before the judge.

Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World in 2007 saying he took “ultimate responsibility” for what had happened, even though he had no knowledge of the phone hacking that led to the jailing of Clive Goodman, the paper’s former royal editor, and the private investigator hired by the tabloid, Glenn Mulcaire. Cameron has insisted he appointed Coulson believing he deserved a second chance.

In his first public appearance since his resignation from No 10 and his subsequent arrest, Coulson was not cross-examined about his knowledge of phone hacking at the paper to avoid any risk of prejudice to any future trial.

But he revealed that the only time Cameron asked him about the court case that had led to Goodman’s conviction was at the time of his initial appointment in May 2007. “I was able to repeat what I said publicly, that I knew nothing about the Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire case in terms of what they did,” Coulson said. Cameron told him he had conducted some background security checks on him. Coulson’s severance terms from News International, owners of News of the World, were also not discussed.

In evidence on Thursday, Coulson disclosed that after the Guardian ran a front-page story in November 2009 suggesting that phone hacking was widespread at the paper Cameron made no fresh inquiries. Asked whether he was questioned by Cameron or anyone else after that date about Goodman and Mulcaire, Coulson said: “Not that I can recall.”

By the time Coulson entered Downing Street in May 2010, the Guardian had run more than 90 articles about illegal activities at the News of the World under his editorship, 14 of them on the front page, and Cameron had been warned by a number of political colleagues against hiring him as the No 10 press secretary.

As the Guardian and other newspapers published a succession of disclosures about illegal practices at the News of the World under Coulson, Cameron repeatedly defended him, stating as late as January 2011: “Obviously, when he was editor of the News of the World, bad things happened at that newspaper. I think there is a danger at the moment that he is effectively being punished twice for the same offence.”

No 10 refused to explain the prime minister’s apparently incurious attitude, saying he would explain his approach when he gives evidence to the inquiry himself, probably in June.

Coulson also told the inquiry that he had unsupervised access to papers marked “top secret” and attended meetings of the national security council even though he had only been through basic security vetting. Unsupervised access to top secret material requires the higher “developed vetting” level of clearance held by most of Coulson’s predecessors. No 10 defended its decision not to make Coulson subject to developed vetting on his appointment as government communications director following the 2010 election, saying there had been a conscious decision made by the civil service that fewer special advisers should have access to the intelligence material.

No 10 said a decision was taken to “DV” Coulson only after a terrorist incident at East Midlands airport revealed the extent to which he needed regular access to intelligence material to conduct his job. The six-month vetting procedure had not been completed by the time he resigned.

Coulson disclosed that he retained £40,000-worth of News Corp shares while working at No 10. “Since resigning from my role as Downing Street communications director, I have given thought to one issue which I now accept could have raised the potential for conflict. Whilst I didn’t consider my holding of this stock to represent any kind of conflict of interest, in retrospect I wish I had paid more attention to it,” he said in his witness statement.

“I was never asked about any share or stock holdings and … it never occurred to me that there could be a conflict of interest.”

No 10 said he would have been asked to fill out a form when he was appointed stating whether he had relevant shares that might represent a conflict of interest.

Coulson said he had no involvement in the government’s response to News Corp’s bid to buy BSkyB, but the Conservatives have already faced calls for an independent inquiry after a series of emails between the News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel and a special adviser to Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, were released to the Leveson inquiry.

Cameron has refused to launch his own inquiry into whether Hunt breached the ministerial code saying he will wait to see what evidence emerges from the Leveson inquiry.

But Leveson in the strongest terms yet said he was not conducting an inquiry into the ministerial code, and could not be arbiter of Hunt’s fate.

Leveson ruled: “I will not be making a judgment on whether there has been a breach. That is simply not my job, and I have no intention of going outside the terms of reference that have been set for me.”

In what may prove to be indication of the Leveson inquiry’s initial thinking, Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, asked whether the revelations that almost daily updates were being offered by Hunt’s office to News Corp on its BSkyB takeover bid could be evidence of an “over-cosy relationship”.

“The issue is whether a minister of the crown exercising a quasi-judicial role may have failed to fulfil it because he has demonstrated through his actions that he was too close to News Corporation.”

Jay said the “least serious finding” Leveson could make was that Hunt was biased, but the “most serious” was that Hunt was prepared expressly to authorise his special adviser to conduct what in effect were covert communications with the lobbyist or, put another way, provide a running commentary on the bid.

Coulson: I may have seen top-secret material

Ex-News of the World editor tells Leveson inquiry he may have had unsupervised access to papers, despite low-level clearance

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has admitted that he may have had unsupervised access to top secret material while he worked for David Cameron in Downing Street, despite not having undergone the necessary security checks.

Coulson’s admission at the Leveson inquiry on Thursday afternoon appears to contradict No 10′s account of the former News International employee’s access to the most sensitive government materials while he was working for the prime minister. It has consistently claimed that Coulson had appropriate security clearance for his work because he did not have unsupervised access to top secret papers.

Downing Street decided that Coulson and some other officials would not undergo rigorous, high-level vetting when the coalition government took power in May 2010. It has maintained the decision was made partly because it felt too many officials had unnecessary access to highly sensitive papers in the previous government and partly to keep down costs.

In questions put directly to the prime minister’s spokesman and through freedom of information requests over almost nine months, the Guardian has asked if Coulson had “unsupervised access to information designated top secret or above” at any time.

Following an internal review of its handling of the questions, the Cabinet Office replied in March: “No information is held that shows that Andy Coulson was sent information incorrectly or for which he was not authorised.”

But when Robert Jay QC, counsel to the Leveson inquiry, asked Coulson if he had had unsupervised access to material designated top secret or above, he replied: “I may have done, yes.”

Cameron’s former director of communications told the Leveson inquiry he had undergone vetting to “supervised security check” level in order to work inside Downing Street, a level lower than almost all of his predecessors and successors in a similar role. Under government security rules, only officials who have undergone more stringent “developed vetting” are allowed unsupervised access to top secret state papers.

“Security check” clearance grants regular access to material classified as secret, but only “occasional, controlled access” to top-secret documents. Roles involving unsupervised access to top-secret material require higher-level developed vetting, according to official guidance.

Developed vetting involves an extra questionnaire; criminal record, security services and credit reference checks; an extended, typically three-hour, interview, plus reference checks by phone or in person. Investigators ask questions such as: “Is there anything else in your life you think it appropriate for us to know?”.

Under cross-examination Coulson told the inquiry he attended National Security Council meetings while he worked in Downing Street between May 2010 and January 2011.

Loss of funds sinks former pit village’s ‘big society’ plans

Nottinghamshire scheme that helped cut crime and sparked community involvement falls victim to government cuts

Whatever happened to the big society?

The “big society” was not even a scribble on the back of a Notting Hill restaurant napkin when a tiny neighbourhood project got under way in a deprived former pit community in Nottinghamshire eight years ago. But what activists achieved in Manton would come to embody exactly the kind of social action initiative the prime minister had in mind when he unveiled his government’s “legacy” social project.

Manton Community Alliance set itself a bold ambition: to revitalise a community beset by unemployment, crime, antisocial behaviour and pitifully low levels of civic engagement. It sought to break a culture of dependency and was fired by the belief that neighbourhoods could only be transformed from the grassroots by encouraging local people to help participate in the running of the area.

The alliance was convinced that traditional state-led, top-down neighbourhood regeneration projects were unwieldy, unsustainable and doomed to fail. Making Manton a better place to live, it believed, came not through bureaucratic process, but by building community self-esteem and confidence, and developing “social capital”.

Progress would come from individual behavioural changes, such as encouraging an end to littering, and bigger collective ones, such as people having a real say on how local public services were run and public funds spent, from policing to parks.

“In 2004 we were talking about big society in Manton without knowing what it was about,” said the alliance’s former neighbourhood manager, Richard Edwards.

With a £350,000 annual grant from the Labour government, the alliance set about experimenting with radical and innovative approaches to community engagement. It had community policing before it became a mainstream idea and tried participatory budgeting, giving people influence in the decisions made about the community.

Traditional clip-board consultation methods were abandoned, along with civic meetings.

The alliance knew it was often cutting against the grain of accepted wisdom on how to tackle entrenched community problems. Its detractors criticised its approach as fluffy and conceptual.

But over time, Edwards said, the benefits emerged: crime fell 30%; levels of public involvement in the community went from practically zero to 62%; neighbourhood trust levels soared; and three-quarters of residents surveyed agreed Manton “had got better”.

Word got around about the transformation happening in north Nottinghamshire. Coachloads of regeneration professionals turned up to see what was going on, said Edwards.

The alliance began to win awards. A PhD student from the University of Bergen, Norway, based a thesis on the work at Manton.

The project’s seven-year funding stream stopped in 2011, but Edwards was optimistic that the success of the scheme and the government’s commitment to big society would enable it to survive, and pass on its learning to similar communities across the UK.

But his optimism was misplaced. The shutters came down on Manton Community Alliance at the end of December. Huge cuts scuppered hopes of finding council funding. More galling, however, was a lack of funding from the government’s £20m Social Action Fund, designed specifically to help projects like Manton. Edwards applied twice, in vain.

“I would have come to terms with us closing if we were rubbish,” he said.

The collapse of Manton Community Alliance is a symbol for all that has gone wrong with big society, says Paul Twivy, a social entrepreneur and enthusiast for the principles underpinning David Cameron’s vision.

Twivy, who helped set up the Big Lunch initiative, now runs Your Square Mile, a project which works to bring the ideas pioneered in Manton and elsewhere to deprived communities across the UK. Manton, he says, was “big society incarnate”.

Twivy was one of a handful of carefully selected activists and social entrepreneurs sympathetic to big society ideas, who were invited to the launch of Cameron’s vision at Downing Street on 18 May 2010, just two weeks into the coalition.

Alongside Twivy in the cabinet room was Dick Atkinson, of the Balsall Health Forum, who was said to have been the inspiration for the Tories’ big society manifesto, and David Robinson, of Community Links.

Present too were social innovators such as Hilary Cottam, of Participle, digital activists such as Will Perrin, of Talk About Local, business-minded charity heads, such as Rob Owen, of St Giles Trust, and Lord Adebowale, of Turning Point.Experienced advocates from the inner-city frontline included Camila Batmangelidjh, of Kids Company.

The guest list symbolised everything big society was supposed to be about: innovative, grassroots focused, sustainable, entrepreneurial, and sceptical of the ability of the state on its own to solve social problems.

The huge, corporate “Tesco-style charities” so reviled by the Conservatives in opposition and the big charity sector lobbying groups were conspicuous by their absence.

Cameron made it clear in a short speech that the types of organisations his cabinet room guests represented would be the vanguard of the big society: “If we want to solve our deepest social problems, whether it’s drug abuse, whether it’s problems of poor housing, whether it’s problems of deep and entrenched poverty, whether it’s the problem of children in care – it’s going to be the voluntary sector [and] social enterprises.”

Two years on, a Guardian survey of those Downing Street guests shows many have become deeply frustrated and disheartened at the gap between rhetoric and reality on big society.

All said Cameron’s vision resonated with them at the time. Many now regard it as a policy that has lost its way, derailed by savage cuts in public funding to the voluntary sector – estimated at £3.3bn between 2011 and 2016 – and the government’s failure to unlock institutional resistance to change in Whitehall.

“Big society ran into the reality of the cuts,” said Adebowale.

Their pessimism about big society was reflected in a comprehensive independent audit published on Monday by the thinktank Civil Exchange. It maps the voluntary sector’s collapse in trust in the government, and says grassroots social enterprises are being carved out of government contracts because of an “implicit bias” towards big private companies.

It warns the cuts, which disproportionately focus on poorer areas, will exacerbate a “big society gap” in which social capital shrivels in places where it is most needed (like Manton), potentially leaving Cameron’s vision as an “initiative for the leafy suburbs”.

Cameron continues to push the big society, despite widespread public and media scepticism.

The civil society minister, Nick Hurd, points to a range of government initiatives – recruitment of a cadre of community organisers, Free Schools, a national citizen service, small social action funds, and new powers for communities to take over services under the Localism Act.

But Robinson, dubbed the “godfather of community organising” said he was not impressed: “I do not think they amount to a whole, coherent, new vision in the way that big society was first discussed. They are small-scale changes, and pale into insignificance in terms of the extent of the cuts and the impact on organisations like ours.

“If we were to have that meeting again we would say he [Cameron] should make serious changes … My hope is that he learns the lesson of the first two years. It is not enough to paint a picture; you have to get the plumbing right in government to deliver big society.”

David Cameron aide discussed BSkyB bid with News Corp lobbyist

Policy adviser Rohan Silva held talks with Frédéric Michel on several matters, including the ‘Sky transaction’, email reveals

A senior aide to David Cameron held talks with a News Corp lobbyist over Rupert Murdoch’s takeover bid for BSkyB, the Guardian has learned.

Rohan Silva, a senior policy adviser in Downing Street, met News Corp’s lobbyist, Frédéric Michel, on 2 December 2010 as the media conglomerate prepared to take outright control of the satellite broadcaster. An email about the meeting sent to James Murdoch said Michel and “David’s adviser” discussed four different matters, including the “Sky transaction”.

The correspondence was produced by Murdoch in his evidence to the Leveson inquiry last week, but it did not name the aide. Silva’s position in Cameron’s inner circle of advisers will increase pressure on Downing Street to give detailed assurances the prime minister had no involvement in the attempted BSkyB deal.

Downing Street said on Wednesday that any text or email exchanges between Downing Street and Michel over the BSkyB deal would be released if Lord Justice Leveson asked for them. “Frédéric Michel has been into Number 10,” confirmed the prime minister’s spokeswoman. “We are not going to try and pretend otherwise and we don’t think there is anything wrong with that.”

A Downing Street source confirmed that Michel met Silva but said it was a routine meeting involving talks on intellectual property. On the BSkyB deal, they said Silva only stated the government’s public position. Michel reported back to James Murdoch that Silva “recognised [the] need to look at it [the transaction] from a plurality point of view”.

At the time, News Corp wanted to restrict UK regulatory scrutiny issues of “media plurality,” which would have required the communications regulator Ofcom to make an assessment of whether the Sky takeover would give the enlarged company too much cross media power. Those opposing the transaction argued Ofcom should also consider competition issues as part of the plurality review and whether the deal would give the company too great a market share. During December, the Murdoch company successfully kept competition issues out of Ofcom’s remit, ensuring the subject was studied separately by the European Commission. It later concluded that the News Corp purchase of Sky created no competition problems, even though it amounted to the largest newspaper group buying the largest broadcaster.

Downing Street said the meeting did not breach the Chinese wall between the prime minister’s office and the culture secretary who was empowered to decide on the proposed takeover in that it insists existed over the BSkyB takeover.

Cameron has repeatedly said he had no involvement in consideration of the £7.8bn BSkyB deal which was due to be decided on by the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in a “quasi-judicial” capacity. Hunt’s special adviser, Adam Smith, resigned last week following the revelation of emails between him and Michel about the takeover bid which Hunt said was “inappropriate”. At the weekend Cameron said he told James Murdoch at a private pre-Christmas dinner in 2010 that the deal would be dealt with “impartially, properly, in the correct way, but obviously I had nothing to do with it, I recused myself from it.”

The Downing Street denied Number 10 “could have been feeding information to DCMS” about the what to do on the deal because of the Chinese wall and because “nobody in Number 10 was informed [about the deal]“.

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No 10 says Jeremy Hunt could face inquiry after Leveson

David Cameron could instigate an inquiry into whether culture secretary breached ministerial code, spokesman says

The beleaguered culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, could face further investigation over his links to the Murdoch family and their News Corp business once he has given evidence to the Leveson inquiry, Downing Street has said.

The minister is expected to face a lengthy wait before he gives evidence to the Leveson inquiry. He is set to appear at the inquiry into press ethics in mid-May after his request to testify earlier was rejected. If his evidence fails to convince colleagues of his integrity, he will be investigated by the prime minister’s adviser on the ministerial code.

Hunt said he wanted to answer the questions raised by the evidence of Rupert Murdoch given to the inquiry this week, which suggested that he personally supported News Corp’s bid to take over BSkyB, despite having a quasi-judicial role in assessing the propriety of a takeover.

Downing Street said Hunt would be able to give evidence under oath to the Leveson inquiry and then David Cameron could decide whether a further investigation was required into a possible breach of the ministerial code. That investigation would be carried out by Sir Alex Allan, who advises the prime minister on the code.

A spokesman for Downing Street said: “Once Jeremy Hunt’s evidence is made public and he is questioned, if there is anything that suggests there has been a breach of the code the prime minister would, of course, act.”

“Jeremy Hunt will be appearing before the inquiry under oath and has made clear he will be providing all necessary evidence for consideration. It does not make sense to cut across a judicial inquiry with a parallel process that would risk pre-empting, duplicating or contradicting it.”

The culture minister’s position in government has come under attack following the publication of 163 pages of emails by Rupert Murdoch which detailed the close relationship between the Murdochs and their staff and Hunt, in particular his special adviser Adam Smith. Smith resigned this week and Hunt promised he would clear his own name by releasing his communication records.

The deputy chairman of the Conservative party, Michael Fallon, said on Saturday that the evidence should be “tested” at the Leveson inquiry. “If later on, obviously, it looks as if there’s something that needs to be investigated under the ministerial code that can be done,” he told the BBC.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said the prime minister should have fired Hunt and at the very least should refer the matter urgently to Allan, to protect the “integrity of his government”.

Speaking in Ealing Broadway, west London, where he met potential voters with mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone, he said: “I think Jeremy Hunt should go, I think the prime minister should have fired him. But the very least he’s got to do is refer it to Alex Allan.

“We’ve had Conservatives calling for that, we’ve had Liberal Democrats calling for that, we’ve got Labour calling for it – this is now an all-party issue.

“Frankly the longer the prime minister goes on resisting what seems to be the obvious thing to do, the more people will conclude he has something to hide, and he doesn’t want the truth to be got at.”

Pasty tax petition delivered to Downing Street

Greggs CEO leads bakers in protest over 20% VAT budget charge to fresh baked goods such as sausage rolls and pasties

Hundreds of bakers have braved April showers to deliver a petition of half a million signatures against the pasty tax to Downing Street.

Supported by a brass band, hundreds of bakers fitted out in white hats and chef’s coats chanted “save our savouries” in protest at a recent 20% VAT budget charge to fresh baked goods such as sausage rolls, pies and Cornish pasties.

Addressing his “fellow bakers” with a megaphone, Greggs CEO, Ken McMeikan, told the protesters he was both angry and resolute.

“We come here today with peaceful intentions but resolute determination to fight to the bitter end this proposed tax that will have a devastating impact on ordinary people who simply can not afford to pay 20% more for everyday food,” he said.

“This government are showing themselves to be out of touch … with ordinary hard working people … with the challenges facing high streets … with the poorest in this country who need higher aspirations and hope not higher prices,” McMeikan told the crowd.

Employees from various baking companies had come from around the country including Newcastle, Gloucester and Cornwall to deliver a petition signed by over half a million people in just three weeks, to protest against the so-called pasty tax, introduced by George Osborne during the budget last month.

Arguing that the government needed to create confident customers with money in their pockets, McMeikan added: “People are angry, you are angry, I am angry … Today we send a clear an emphatic message to the government that ordinary people simply do not want this pasty tax.”

Donna Yates, 44, area sales management for Jane’s Pantry which has more than 100 employees, said: “It’s the working class people who buy our products and to put another 20% on them is going to be atrocious for them. They are not going to be able to afford it and we work for the local people so we don’t want that to happen to them.”

At around midday half a dozen representatives from the protest delivered several boxes of signed petitions to Downing Street.

Cornish Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Gilbert who was supporting the protest said the food tax could hit the Cornish economy to the tune of £7.5m a year and result in 400 job losses in pasty production alone and “more from the supply of ingredients and retail positions”.

“It is simply wrong for the government to impose a tax on the humble Cornish pasty while luxurious caviar remains tax free.

“I will continue to seek meetings with ministers to explain why they are wrong and I will be making representations at every turn as these proposals progress through the legislative process.”

A Treasury spokesperson said: “The Budget closes loopholes and addresses anomalies to ensure a level playing field. In fact, VAT is already paid on over 90% of all hot takeaway food. And HMRC estimate that VAT is currently paid on around 40% of hot meat pies, pasties and sausage rolls.”