What does Robert Peston mean? And who are these political activists?
The Co-op Group has told me: “Given the serious and wide-ranging allegations, Co-op Group has started a fact-finding process to find any inappropriate behaviour and will take action accordingly.”
And the board has also launched a “root and branch review of the democratic structure of the organisation, because we need to modernise to make sure the interests of all members are properly represented in the oversight of business activities”.
In other words, the new management of Co-op Group is concerned to reform a governance system that allowed a small number of activists in the political wing of Co-op Group to control the group’s commercial activities.
The less than reverend Paul Flowers was a Labour Party politico…..his appointment was fixed by those activists?
Did Labour hijack the Co-op? Maybe that’s why the Co-op ‘supports’ Labour.
Nice if you can hijack a commercial enterprise and use its funds to pay for your Party’s political campaigning.
Is that not headline news or worth an indepth investigation? Guess not.
Just like Falkirk, and all the rest of the selection processes that Unite tried to rig….or Miliband’s energy freeze policy, or his apprenticeship scheme, or his living wage……none given the comprehensive stress testing that the BBC gives to the Tory policies.
Guido links to Charles Moore in the Spectator who is less than impressed with the BBC’s coverage of all things Labour…and Peston in particular:
There has naturally been plenty of unfavorable comment on how the Revd Paul Flowers, the ‘crystal Methodist’, was allowed by the Financial Services Authority to become chairman of the Co-op Bank. But the story does not reflect very well on the media either. If you look at Robert Peston’s BBC blog on the subject, for instance, there is a lot of ‘I am told’ and ‘according to the Manchester Evening News’.
Is there no one in the BBC’s enormous staff who could have done a bit of work years ago on the Revd Mr Flowers?
Like Falkirk and Grangemouth (see last week’s Notes), this is a story about the inner working of the Labour movement. It is grimy in its details. It may even require leaving London and going somewhere in the north to discover the facts. I suppose that is too much to ask. But if it had been a story about Tory corruption of a bank, I feel Mr Peston and co would have been in more of a hurry to find out about it.
The FSA was set up by Labour . . . Jobs for the boys and, it appears, a bit more.
Put it like this. If I was so incompetent as to appoint staff who were not suitable for the job then the firm for whom I work would be fined rather a large amount. I trust that the co-op will be suitably fined (- 30% for swift settlement of course) – it might encourage whistleblowers to come forth.
Not quite.
Labour amalgamated about 13 different oversight organizations into the FSA. Its was then staffed with the dregs from all other government departments whom these departments didn’t want. they were “promoted” out, which is normal practice for the civil service. look at lyn Homer.
Called it.
Bull’s eye David.
This is predictable codswallop. The Co-Op has always been an active political organisation. It thrives by charging exorbitant prices in its nasty little shops (mostly used by old people who can’t drive to better alternatives) then filters the money to further its political ends.
Peston is just concocting excuses for his socialist friends.
I note they`re adept at putting a few “offers” out, then when they run out-slipping rip off tat into the bargain bins unlabelled…so you`re forced to argue for refunds or a rescan.
They do it all the time down here…we`re the South, so it`s their version of redistributing up to Rochdale and their Childrens Homes Liaison Appeals…
Yes of course, because Tesco Metro charge bargain prices for everything.
Another class warrior rushes to the barricades. Only to be bayoneted by reality.
He is right , Tesco Metro do charge the earth BUT he is also missing the point and that is what they do with the money they make. The Co-Op uses it’s profits to fund the Labour party whilst I doubt if Tesco’s does. Mind you no supermarket is a charity and they are all out to make as much money from you as possible. It is down to the individual to buy wisely.
The point is that the Co-Operative has outgrown its noble origins and become a money raising device for Left wing politics.
That it does so by overcharging the immobile and the elderly while forever banging on about how ‘ethical’ it is, is entirely in keeping with the common socialist belief that almost anything can be justified because what they believe in is morally right and ‘worth a few sacrifices’.
Those sacrifices, of course, rarely being made by the comrades themselves.
And Tesco Metro overcharge people who drive cars? I know that the Co-op is political (no other commentators here seem to have heard of the Co-operative party) but sometimes foaming at the mouth with hatred and making stuff up is counter-productive (One-Stop here seems to have a high proportion of old people shopping for some reason).
It’s true. The Co-op (as I know it) was always confined to the high street and even small outlets on housing estates. Elderly people are restricted to shopping locally so they habitually shop at the Co-op. I’m the best part of 50 years of age and I remember the only supermarket type shop was the Co-op.
There is a Co-op in my town. I don’t shop there because I was insulted by one of their staff about 4 years ago. I shop at Sainsburys now.
Make allowances, Eddie – poor old Max is most likely fresh out of his Marxist UK education and far too young to remember the golden era of life under the unions in the seventies, let alone the fifties and sixties. He’s got time to mature.
Sainsburys support Labour.
… and yet it is run by a Tory peer. Who’da thunk it?
“Sir Robert Sainsbury gave almost his entire stake in the company to David Sainsbury, his only son….on 2 November 1992, David Sainsbury became Chairman…In 1996, Sainsbury’s announced its first drop in profits in 22 years, the first of three profits warnings during David’s chairmanship…David Sainsbury made a surprise announcement of his retirement as Chairman to pursue his long-held ambition to have a career in politics”
He was a failure as the chairman of his family business, and so he became a Labour Party politician. Was the position of chairman of the Co-op bank not available?
Paul Flowers is now “apparently” filmed buying his drugs.
The last few days , it has been “allegedly” filmed buying them.
We need to go to town on these subtle semantic details_Ibet there`s a book or suchlike at the BBC to give codes re the Party Line.
And-if not-it could tie them up in knots telling us why they chose a word for two days before replacing it with another…just to show that we listen to every f***in word from these lying snivelling scummers at BBC News.
Listen to Gary O Donaghues language (World Tonight 10pm..20/11/13) as he “alleges” that Cameron is “going all out to pin the blame for the Co-Op Bank on the Labour Party”…”rancorous exchanges in the Commons”…”Labour says it`s ridiculous” etc.
About time we screwed them over every word they use…when is heated and passionate…when is it rancorous then Gary?
Still, LEA Primary Governor as well eh?…Bradford Labour Party eh?…where`s Ray Honeyford when you needed him.
And what level of gay/kiddie porn or whatever is merely inappropriate on a Council website then Harriet?…I`d have thought it was all pretty much verboten..but what would I know?
Time to garrotte the f**in BBC on their weasel words.
Satan is in the detail…let`s find him, insh`allah eh?
Where is the police investigation the purchase of illegal drugs is just as much a criminal offence as selling them.
where is the police inquiry purchasing illegal drugs is as much a criminal offence as selling them
SORRY ABOUT THE DOUBLE COMMENT
Also involve in the coop’s scandalous boycott of Israeli goods it seems.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/11/18/busted-former-chair-of-major-uk-israel-boycott-group-caught-buying-crack-crystal-meth/
“Is there no one in the BBC’s enormous staff who could have done a bit of work years ago on the Revd Mr Flowers?”
Of course there isn’t, just as there wasn’t anyone to check up on Brown’s lies from 2005 that ‘he had repaid debt’. It started to go up as soon as he departed from Ken Clarke’s spending plans.
Did Al JaBeeBa ever question this? Did they buggery, with apologies for my rude word to the Rev Flowers.
Right now 8.30 on the Toady programme, John Numpty is pushing the line that Osborne sought less stringent capital requirements for the Co-op at an EU meeting last year so the scandal is all their fault.
It’s always the Tories’ fault according to Al JaBeeBa!
On TWATO at about 1.10 today Martha Carnoes line was that the LibDums were to blame because their members had Coke-Op bank affinity credit cards from which the LibDums were remunerated. Much as I am happy to stick it to the LibDums at any opportunity, this does seem to be going a bit too far even for ZaNuLaB (with its millions of loans and donations fro the Coke-Op bank) and its broadcast arm Al JaBeeBa.
And I’ve just heard on Al JaBeeBa’s 3pm bulletin for ZaNuLaB that MillionaireMilipede Minor is accusing Cameron of smearing said ZaNuLaB for political purposes.
You really couldn’t make it up!
I heard the same again at 6pm – a BBC attempt to smear the LibDems about a perfectly normal commercial arrangement with the CoOp Bank.
The BBC is trying to spread the mud around, obviously. Each report I have heard today has mixed up Labour, the Tories and now the LibDems – when it is obvious that the only real sleaze concern Labour.
“Why does the Left think it’s irrelevant the Co-op boss is a coke-sniffing aficionado of rent boys?”
By STEPHEN GLOVER.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2510942/Stephen-Glovers-view-Paul-Flowers-scandal.html
Easily explained. Somewhere in the BBC Editorial Double Standard Guidelines there is reference to the ‘right kind’ of ‘coke-sniffing aficionados of rent boys’ vs. those Newsnight/BIJ can conjure up and set u… target with near impunity.
It is rather unique in professional news reporting of integrity, mind.
Unaccountable propagandists backed by secret censors only need apply.
“Co-op and the culture of the Labour Party”
By DAILY MAIL COMMENT.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2510961/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Co-op-culture-Labour-Party.html
“Labour’s £18m of loans from Co-op:
Pressure mounts on Miliband over bank that showered its party friends with cheap cash.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2510913/Labours-18m-loans-Co-op-Pressure-mounts-Miliband-bank-showered-party-friends-cheap-cash.html
-from ‘The Times’ (£) front page, Friday:-
“Labour is engulfed by Co-op Bank scandal”
[Excerpt]:-
“Ed Balls trumpeted his role in the deal that almost broke the Co-operative Bank, it has emerged, as questions mount over Labour’s links to the troubled institution. The Shadow Chancellor distanced himself yesterday from Paul Flowers, whose disgrace after allegations of drug use has engulfed the bank in scandal. Mr Balls insisted that he had never had a meeting, telephone call or e-mail exchange with the Methodist minister who was filmed handing over cash in an apparent attempt to buy crystal meth and crack cocaine. However, literature from his Labour leadership campaign shows Mr Balls keen to highlight his work while a Treasury minister in clearing the way for the Co-operative Bank to merge with the Britannia Building Society. The deal, which went through in 2009,…”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/