Trademark infringement

[Ian Batten]

>
> patty hewitt made a spectacular job of spreading herself around.  
> there's no question she has contacts, and further there is no  
> question she's using them. What she has to trade is 20 years of  
> westminster palace / whitehall secrets.

She wasn't elected as an MP until 1997, and I think you overdo the  
influence of being Neil Kinnock's press secretary in the late  
eighties.  She was working for Arthur Anderson in the mid-90s,  
following a few years at the IPPR.  If that's the career of someone  
with deep dark influence, she must be fighting through the thousands  
of people with similarly peripheral careers.

She spent four years as a minor minister or equivalent and four years  
as a cabinet minister; a cabinet minister who notably failed and was  
booed and heckled by her own client state.

It's quite reasonable to point to influence and pull.  However, by  
ascribing it to everyone who's ever held a Westminster pass you  
implicitly dis-empower anyone wanting to campaign for change.
>
> the whole lobbying thing is about how able you are to take someone  
> out to lunch or dinner, get them drunk on the most expensive wine,  
> and gently sell them on the idea that your product or service is the  
> most awesome. it's a fairly simple formula. When your targets get  
> cold feet, you nudge them by reminding them about that secretary  
> they were indiscreet with. Come on. you all know knowledge is  
> power.. that's how it works.

Do you speak from personal experience?  Do you seriously believe that  
decisions are taken in government because ex-ministers blackmail  
senior civil servants?

Anyway, I actually think you're entirely wrong.  The decision process  
in government is horrifically complex, and the idea that you could  
blackmail one person into forcing a deal through is entirely  
misplaced.  To assume that decisions you don't agree with are only  
taken because of sexual blackmail reduces all debate to nonsense.  If  
you can show a case, even a suspicion of a case, of it happening, feel  
free to put it forward.

Businessmen like the idea of basking in the light of the political,  
just as politicians like basking in the light of Bono and Bill Gates.

To (again) quote The West Wing:

> Ainsley: [to her Republican friends] Say they are smug and superior.  
> Say their approach to public policy makes you want to tear your hair  
> out. Say they like high taxes and spending your money. Say they want  
> to take your guns and open your borders but don't call them  
> worthless. At least don't do it in front of me. The people I have  
> met have been extraordinarily qualified. Their intent is good. Their  
> commitment is true. They are righteous, and they are patriots.

I actually think that, broadly, that's true of the British government,  
elected and salaried.

>
> blunkett is, it would seem, driving a significant proportion of the  
> current ID Card policy.

Indeed.  He's a former Home Secretary who has some ideas.  Which civil  
servants has he been blackmailing?  I'd have thought he'd find that  
singularly tricky, actually.  He's writing a column which contains his  
ideas.  So what?  You might just as well say that Peter Tatchell is  
running the country because he gets a free ride in the Guardian.  In  
what way is Blunkett exercising any meaningful influence in this  
country that is improper?

ian