Recent Articles
When Brooke met Brooker
Jan 29, 2010 Access Laws, FOI in the news 6 Comments
I’m on the most recent episode of Charlie Brooker’s wonderfully acerbic Newswipe. Readers of my twitterfeed (@newsbrooke) may know that I’m a big fan of Brooker’s style of caustic and insightful humour so it was a real pleasure to be interviewed for the second series of his show about the news.
You can watch the entire episode on the BBC’s rubbishy iplayer for a limited time (I appear 15 minutes in) or in perpetuity on YouTube (minute 5). I’m talking here about the way journalists grant public officials anonymity for no good reason. By the very definition of their role, official spokespeople have absolutely no reason to be anonymous yet one of the more dubious practices of the British press is the way reporters collude with officials by granting anonymity.
Sources should be granted anonymity only in very limited circumstances where naming may cause specific harm (such as a whistleblower who could lose his job). There is no reason a Home Office or police force spokesman, for example, should be granted anonymity, yet I’ve had many arguments with these people who insist on it as their ‘right’.
The reason these people insist on anonymity is simply to exercise power without accountability. Anonymity = deniability.
I believe it is a fundamental role of the journalist to push officials to stand behind what they say. If these officials don’t agree, then don’t print their statements or give them air time. It really is that simple. If journalists stuck together on just this one point they could overnight force a change in the culture of parliament, the civil service and many public services.
Bureaucrats and Blackmailers
Jan 1, 2010 Law Enforcement 2 Comments
Over Christmas I happened to catch the Orson Welles Sketchbook broadcast December 26th on BBC4. Welles may have been speaking decades ago, but his message couldn’t be more pertitent to today. He disccuses state surveillance, police powers and blackmailing bureaucrats.
You can watch it here: http://bbc.co.uk/i/plbtd/
Welles relates stories from his travels around the globe dealing with border police and bureaucracy in general. He longs for his father’s day when people had free movement as opposed to, “nowdays [when] we’re treated like demented or delinquent children.” What on earth would he make of modern-day Britain, the most watched place on the planet?
He tells of being stopped at the border of a nameless European country by typically officious and bullying policemen. He’s at pains to tell us he is by no means an anarchist or against the police. He may play a practical joke on the police but he does not advocate breaking the law. Rather he wants to bring the policeman to law.
The best bits begin 9 minutes in where he explores the insidious dangers of ‘red tapism’.
“Think of all those forms we have to fill out. Why should I have to confide my religion to the police? No one’s race is anybody’s business.”
Yes the policeman has a difficult job a very hard job, he says, but, “it’s the essence of our society that the policemans’ job should be hard. He’s their to protect the free citzien. Chasing criminals is an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman than the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal.”
“We should be grateful for the policeman. But we should be grateful, too, for the laws that protect us against the policeman. There are those laws and they’re quite different from police regulations. And those regulations do pile up. The forms keep coming in.”
“The bureaucrat, and I’m including the policeman here, is part of one great big monstrous thing – really like a blackmailer. You can never pay him off. The more you give him the more he’ll demand.”
We accept each new demand because we don’t want to get into trouble with the police. It’s easier just to hand over whatever new piece of our personal lives the authorities require, to agree to yet more surveillance, more forms, more databases; to grant the police more powers of arrest.
Why should we make trouble? A better question in a democracy would be, as Welles says, “Why should the policeman make trouble for us?”
Terrorists everywhere?
Dec 21, 2009 Freedom of Information 3 Comments
The British Journal of Photography have made some cunning FOI requests to determine the extent to which controversial “S44″ stop-and-search powers have been applied across Britain.
Under Sections 40-44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 , the police can stop and search you without a warrant, or any grounds for suspicion, and can arrest you and hold you for up to 48 hours without any charge being brought. Any items in your possession can be taken in evidence.
Of course, these draconian powers haven’t caught many terrorists. But they have been used over and over again to harass photographers:
Casting announced for expenses film
Dec 9, 2009 FOI in Parliament, FOI in the news 3 Comments
Filming began on Saturday for the BBC4 Drama ‘Bringing Down the House’ about my battle with the House of Commons for MPs’ expense receipts. Today the cast list was published.
Two-time BAFTA winner Anna Maxwell Martin is holding her own against a slew of older men playing the parts of the old boys network in Parliament. I’m sure she’ll give ‘em hell.
There’s a rumour that I might be an extra in the film. We’ll have to just wait and see on that.
Stay tuned.
Expect libel reform now that MPs are affected
Dec 7, 2009 FOI in Parliament, FOI in the news 5 Comments
To some it might seem that today’s article in the Guardian is bad news:
Super-injunctions do limit freedom of speech, Speaker’s lawyers advise
• Guidance contradicts justice minister’s stance
• Select committee fears for parliamentary privilege
But that is to overlook the historic tradition whereby MPs don’t give a fig about the invasion of our privacy, civil liberties or freedom of speech up until they find their own affected.
Who cares about the common man’s freedom of speech being stifled by the world’s worst libel law when you have granted yourself immunity from it through parliamentary privilege? It was a similar story with draconian and disturbingly far-ranging anti-terrorist laws that were all very well up until an MP was arrested in his office (Damien Green MP) or bugged while visiting a prison inmate (Sadiq Khan MP). Then – suddenly – MPs had second thoughts about the totalitarian culture they had nurtured.
Therefore as a result of MPs now finding themselves liable under the libel law I conclude that libel reform is set to become a top priority on the legislative agenda. You read it here first!
Reformer of the Year
Nov 19, 2009 Campaigns, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information 14 Comments
I don’t get to blog much these days as I’m in the final weeks of my book deadline but I ought to mention that I recently received a very welcome piece of news: I won the title of Political Reformer of the Year 2009 after an online election held by the think-tank Reform.
I was lucky to be endorsed by several influential blogs including Guido Fawkes, Left Foot Forward (two sites unusually united), the Daily Telegraph’s Benedict Brogan, and Devil’s Kitchen,
Thanks to these bloggers and to everyone who voted. Here is the press release from Reform.
Heather Brooke is “Reformer of the Year” for MPs’ expenses work
Freedom of Information campaigner wins Reform poll in landslide
Heather Brooke, the Freedom of Information campaigner, has won a poll to find the Reformer of the Year for 2009. Ms Brooke, who was a pivotal figure in unveiling the MPs’ expenses scandal, won the title in a landslide, securing over a thousand of the 1,157 votes.
She played a leading role in the MPs’ expenses saga, winning a High Court case against the House of Commons for the full disclosure of second homes allowances. The ruling was the driving force behind the resulting reform of the Parliamentary expense system.
Entrants to the competition gave a wide variety of impassioned reasons for supporting Ms Brooke:
“She created a totemic symbol of the sort of low-level corruption and waste that will need to be eliminated across government, and proved that the best way to do this is exposure and transparency.”
“Without access to information we are completely stumped.”
“She was the prime mover in the campaign to implement the citizen taxpayers’ rights to Freedom of Information, in spite of the continued apathy of the citizen body.”
“Politics in Britain will never be the same again, it has been forcibly reformed. That’s why she’s clearly the Reformer of the Year: no contest.”
“She brought about the first real serious talk, albeit since forgotten about, of reform to our politics in decades. Others on the list deserve honourable mention but Heather stands out.”
“She had the guts and determination to see through what must have seemed like crawling up Everest. Well done indeed.”
The strength of the public reaction helped Heather Brooke to take an incredible 89% of the votes. Second place was awarded to Douglas Carswell, the reforming MP for Harwich and Clacton and author of The Plan, with third place going to Michael Gove, who plans a big shake-up of the schools system if the Conservatives win power next year.
Reform’s Director, Andrew Haldenby, said: “Heather has shown how transparency can reform Parliament. Now the whole public sector needs to be opened up in the same way, to tackle the real waste that lies at the heart of government.”
Reform is an independent, non-party, charitable think tank (registered charity the Reform Research Trust, no. 1103739) whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity. We believe that by liberalising the public sector, breaking monopoly and extending choice, high quality services can be made available for everyone.
Public locked out: FOI won’t cover private prisons
Nov 11, 2009 FOI in Parliament, Justice & Courts, Law Enforcement 6 Comments
Despite being paid for by the public, prisons operated under government contract by private companies such as Group 4 will not be covered by a proposed extension of the freedom of information act. This marks a dangerous shift in which public services paid for by us are no longer accountable to us because they have been outsourced to a private company.
This was re-stated in a minister’s written answer yesterday in parliament.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm091110/text/91110w0010.htm
10 Nov 2009 : Column 218WPrisons: Freedom of Information
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether he has plans to extend to private prisons the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. [298646]
Mr. Wills: On 16 July, the Government published the response to its consultation on extending the Freedom of Information Act by means of a section 5 order. It noted that it was not minded to include private prisons in an initial order. However, the Government have made it clear it intends to keep the extension of the Act under review.
Hidden High Court Injuctions
Oct 16, 2009 Campaigns, Freedom of Information, Justice & Courts 6 Comments
The Twitter vs Trafigura case continues though it really is the Guardian newspaper and Wikileaks who have been driving this amazing story that illustrates the total lack of freedom of expression granted to the citizens of Britain.
For those who haven’t been following the case: The Guardian was attempting to report on Trafigura, a multi-national oil and commodity trader, but received legal threats from Carter-Ruck. This led to an injunction stopping them from publishing their findings. Yet not only were they prevented from publishing their article but the injunction also prevented them from reporting about the injunction!
These ’superinjunctions’ are an incredibly draconian power and in a strong democracy they would only be used as a last resort in the most limited of circumstances – and when used this would be public knowledge. However, it now transpires that not only are these injunctions granted by judges with seemingly not a second thought for open justice, but there is no record of the judge’s actions either.
The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Bridget Prentice said yesterday, in answer to a written Parliamentary question that the information is not currently available and the High Court has no intention to collate such data:
Paul Farrelly MP: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years. [293012]
Bridget Prentice: The information requested is not available. The High Court collects figures on applications, however injunctions are not separately identifiable, and there are currently no plans to amend databases to do so.
I agree with wikileaks: “Time for UK journalists grow some balls and start violating censorship injunctions”
It is bad enough that superinjunctions exist at all, but it is absolutely appalling that there are not even records kept of how often they are used. Pressure needs to be put on the High Court to record these occasions, and make the details public as a matter of urgency.
When Heather met Paxman
Oct 13, 2009 Campaigns, Central Government, FOI in Parliament, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information 5 Comments
The story that keeps on giving has given me another blast on the airwaves. I’ve been on the TV and radio the last few days talking about the internal audit done on MPs’ expenses in which several hundred MPs have been asked to pay back money. I’ve been brutal, accepting only a few requests due to my tight book deadline, but one appearance I certainly wasn’t going to turn down was Newsnight with the great and glorious Jeremy Paxman.
It’s long been an ambition to get a grilling from him. Oooh!
And it certainly made up for having to debate with Sir Stuart Bell yet again.
You can check out the online repartee on Youtube.
A small victory for openness
Oct 4, 2009 Campaigns, FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information 2 Comments
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has now decided to publish my statement in full after I complained vociferously against their timid lawyers’ claims that it was potentially defamatory.
I received an email while away on holiday the other week: “The Committee having weighed the risks decided to publish the submission.”
It is available to view at: http://public-standards.org.uk/Library/MP_Expenses_E681_Heather_Brooke.pdf [PDF]
Journalism.co.uk reports it will now try and find out what happened to the other 66 submissions.
