International Law

MPs seek to censor the media

By John Hirst

Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall.

The Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary watchdog of the intelligence and security agencies which has a cross-party membership from both Houses, wants to press ministers to introduce legislation that would prevent news outlets from reporting stories deemed by the Government to be against the interests of national security.

The committee also wants to censor reporting of police operations that are deemed to have implications for national security. The ISC is to recommend in its next report, out at the end of the year, that a commission be set up to look into its plans, according to senior Whitehall sources.

Never mind about Da Ali G, wad abaht the DA Notice?

I am referring to this post from Dizzy Thinks blog...

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The PFI Bombshell?
at 11/26/2008 11:43:00 PM

The whole point of PFI, if you believe the hype, is to deliver public service by shifting the risk to the private sector and then have the Government simply rent back the delivered project for a specified length of time at a premium rate to reward the private consortium for taking the risk.

So, why is it that no one has yet mentioned in the press that three of the key financial backers in the private consortiums are HBOS, Abbey National and RBS? That's significant because they are all institutions that are now partly in 'public ownership' thanks to an injection fo £50 billion in recapitalisation.

That means that the Government is not only propping them up, but it is also paying them premium rent for projects it got them to build and rewarding them for taking a risk that it is itself now liable for. In fact, the Government is now paying the banks to take a risk which they are no longer taking because all the risk is back in the hands of the Government as a significant, powerful and influential shareholder.

We're not talking about small picking either, they are over 600 signed PFI agreements that the Government has made, and quite a few of them are backed by the banks that the Government has pushed itself to bankruptcy to hold up. Now put this in context with new accounting rules that will be introduced in April 2009 to make PFI be "on balance sheet". At this point, assuming the Government do it, the books will be laid open and potentially the economy will crash even further.

If at this point the scale of the debt is revealed formally, then there is every potential that the Government could default on its payments to the banks for PFI (both the ones it has part ownership of and the ones that it doesn't); if one of those banks was then to collapse, what would happen to the schools, hospitals, defence installations, transport projects and all other manner of PFIs that have been agreed?

Seems to me that we might not just have a "tax bombshell" coming but rather a "PFI bombshell" that could cripple the country in a way not seen for a generation.

UPDATE: The bringing of the PFI debt on to the balance sheet in April would be a very good reason to hold a snap election before the roof falls in. No?

Obviously, the financial instability of the country must give the government cause for concern. However, removing the freedom of the media to report a story such as this must surely be stretching a request too far?

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on November 27, 2008 (boomark / email).