{"id":30034,"date":"2013-03-13T13:52:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T12:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=30034"},"modified":"2013-03-13T17:46:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-13T16:46:19","slug":"connecting-the-dots-corporate-influence-in-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/connecting-the-dots-corporate-influence-in-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting The Dots: Corporate Influence On Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mick Meaney
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"gove2\"<\/p>\n

This report is just the tip of the iceberg that demonstrates how relationships between big\u00a0business\u00a0and politicians influence government decision making.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the UK’s largest companies, co-founded by a Tory donor, has won government approval that will give the\u00a0company\u00a0influence in every high school in Britain.<\/p>\n

Education secretary Michael Gove\u00a0approved a Corporate Social\u00a0Responsibility\u00a0(CSR) scheme created by Carphone Warehouse, the\u00a0world\u2019s largest independent mobile communications retailer,\u00a0to place the company’s tablet computers in all UK high schools.<\/p>\n

Last year Gove had a secret meeting with Carphone\u00a0chief executive,\u00a0Andrew Harrison, to discuss a national roll out of the scheme in UK schools by the end of 2013. Gove had also provided the company with help from his own government officials, a freedom of information act request has revealed.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RINF Alternative News, an outraged school teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, said:<\/p>\n

“Education in this country isn’t for the benefit of the children, it’s for the benefit of government and corporations.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She appears to be right. The British government has always had a culture of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”, as this deal demonstrates.<\/p>\n

Carphone Warehouse was founded by two men, David Ross and\u00a0Charles Dunstone.<\/p>\n

David Ross is\u00a0a millionaire Tory donor with strong ties to the party. He has\u00a0donated over\u00a0\u00a3117,000 since 2001 and is a close personal friend of Prime Minister, David Cameron.<\/p>\n

Senior Tories had seriously considered nominating Ross as their candidate for Tory Mayor of London, however, he was made an adviser\u00a0to the Mayor of London after Boris Johnson was elected in 2008, but stood down in 2009\u00a0after failing to disclose\u00a0that he had used \u00a3130-million of his Carphone Warehouse\u00a0shares\u00a0as security against personal loans. The scandal also resulted in his resignation\u00a0from the company.<\/p>\n

However, Ross soon returned to politics. In December 2012 he was appointed as an adviser to Boris Johnson, this time on the\u00a0London Legacy Development Corporation board.<\/p>\n

His influence in politics is not to be underestimated.<\/p>\n

The other co-founder of Carphone Warehouse,\u00a0Charles Dunstone, the son of a BP\u00a0executive, also has some interesting ties.<\/p>\n

As a member of the ‘Chipping Norton set’,\u00a0a close group of powerful politicians and media elite who reside in and around the Oxfordshire town of Chipping Norton,\u00a0he has some very high profile friends including; David Cameron,\u00a0Rebekah Brooks,\u00a0\u00a0former CEO of\u00a0News International,\u00a0and\u00a0Elisabeth Murdoch,\u00a0daughter of\u00a0Rupert Murdoch.<\/p>\n

Which is interesting considering Dunstone’s involvement with the media and finance.<\/p>\n

He is the non-executive director of a number of companies including\u00a0DMGT,\u00a0one of the largest media companies in Europe which owns the\u00a0Daily Mail,\u00a0The Mail on Sunday\u00a0and\u00a0Metro. The company also owns a\u00a020% stake in news broadcaster,\u00a0ITN.<\/p>\n

Dunstone is the\u00a0non-executive director of HBOS ,\u00a0a wholly owned subsidiary of the\u00a0Lloyds Banking Group.<\/p>\n

And is also the\u00a0non-executive director of\u00a0IMD, a distributor of advertising and programming, which boasts ITV\u00a0and\u00a0BSkyB as clients.<\/p>\n

While often\u00a0referred\u00a0to as a Labour supporter, in 2009 the Telegraph reported that Dunstone\u00a0would be eagerly welcomed into government, if he desired a business-related job in the\u00a0Cameron administration.<\/p>\n

When we connect the dots like this, it appears that what we’ve got here is another case of a large corporation using its political\u00a0connections which span to the very top of government, to profiteer and sway decisions in their favour.<\/p>\n

The British government has always allowed corporations to call the shots, this is merely just one example of corporate influence in government, out of hundreds. \u00a0Indeed, this week a report revealed<\/a> that one third of ministers, including David Cameron, have links to\u00a0finance\u00a0and energy\u00a0companies.<\/p>\n

It’s clear that decisions are made not based on what is good for the people, but for what is best for the corporations that politicians have a vested interest in.<\/p>\n

This is the reality of our corrupt politician system; a case of who you know, not what you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This report is just the tip of the iceberg that demonstrates how relationships between big business and politicians influence government decision making. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,17,18,1615],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-30034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-politics","9":"category-latest-news","10":"category-uk-news","11":"tag-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}