British Lords, ardent lobbyists… A problem when dealing with “intelligence”
(BRUSSELS2) “ What can I offer you, what can I do for you ? ". It is with these words that Tony Blair's former Home Secretary, then Foreign Minister, sitting today in the House of Lords, Jack Straw (Labour) welcomes the proposal made to him by a Chinese company wishing to promote these interests. In fact journalists, acting "undercover" within the framework of an investigation of the Daily Telegraph and Channel Four. A behavior that does not seem extraordinary. Since his colleague, Malcolm Rifkind (Conservative), gives in to the same proposals.
A former Minister of Defense
This poses a much more serious problem. Because Rifkind chairs the Committee on Security and Intelligence ("Intelligence and Security Committee") of the House of Lords. A position which gives access not to all State secrets but all the same to certain information and above all allows to have a certain influence... Faced with the extent taken by the revelations of the journalists, Mr. Rifkind finally decided, after some hesitation, to step down as Chairman, remaining a member of the commission. communicated.
None of the current controversy with which I am associated is relevant to my work as Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. However, I have today informed my colleagues that while I will remain a member of the Committee, I will step down from the Chairmanship. The Committee is due to be dissolved in little over a month with the prorogation of Parliament for the forthcoming General Election. The main substantive work which needs to be completed will be the publication of our Privacy and Security Report during March. I do not want the work of the Committee and the publication of the Report to be, in any way, distracted or affected by controversy as to my personal position. I have concluded, therefore, that it is better that this important work should be presided over by a new Chairman.
Hard to get by on £5000 a month!
How can you think you can live, as an MP, with " just 60.000 pounds a year “, laments Rifkind to justify his behavior (NB: 5000 pounds per month or 6800 euros at the current price). " If you want to try to attract people with a professional or business background to serve in the House of Commons and if they are not ministers (NB: with a salary), it is simply unrealistic to believe that 'they will exercise their career as parliamentarians by simply accepting a salary of £60.000 a year' he explains to journalists from the Daily (read thearticle).
I also think if you're trying to attract people of a business or professional background to serve in the House of Commons and if they're not ministers it is quite unrealistic to believe they will go through their parliamentary career being able to simply accept a salary of £60,000
We are obliged to have side effects. And Malcolm balances... More than 200 deputies have " varied interests in business outside Parliament. A rather disturbing behavior.
Good use of the networks of a former European official
An apparently lucrative activity if we are to believe the rate displayed by Jack Straw: £5000 per day. An average defends itself (in other words one can negotiate). But for that it promises to be effective. Supporting evidence. This is not the first time that Gordon Brown's former justice minister and member of the House of Lords has acted on behalf of companies. He thus boasts in front of journalists, pseudo-entrepreneurs, of having used his " influence to change the rules of the European Union ", On behalf of ED&F Man, an agri-food company, leading several meetings with "officials" from the European Commission. Similarly, he claims to have used the " charm and menace to the Ukrainian Prime Minister (Mihola Azarov, loyal to President Yanukovych) for his "client" who had a sugar manufacturing company in Ukraine.
Two eminent personalities, from the 1990-2000 era of the United Kingdom
Malcolm Rifkind began a ministerial career very early on in secondary positions under the Thatcher administration, working in particular within the Foreign Affairs administration. He had been the advocate both of a rapprochement with Moscow but also a defender of the Solidarnosc movement, advocating a boycott of General Jaruzelski. He was notably Secretary of State (Minister) for Europe. With John Major, he rose to leading positions. He was thus Minister of Defense from 1992 to 1995 then Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1995 to 1997. In this position, he defended the British position, hostile to military intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina, only consenting to a role of protection of humanitarian convoys. He had signed in 2008, with 3 other former Ministers of Defense, a letter calling for " a world without nuclear weapons”.
Jack Straw is a prominent figure on the Labor scene. He played the role of (a bit like Jean-Pierre Chevènement or Manuel Valls) Member of the party's "ghost" cabinet during the Thatcher years, then Minister of the Interior then Foreign Affairs under Tony Blair, he is at the controls of British diplomacy from 2001 to 2006, at the time of the attacks of September 2001, of the engagement in Afghanistan then in Iraq, passing by the presidency of the European Union (in the second half of 2005). He was then Minister of Justice under Gordon Brown.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
