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Leveson Inquiry: The unedifying world of Matt Sprake

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Matt Sprake in action with the Met

Matt Sprake, the head of Newspics photo agency, whose website was exposed by me on the Exaro News website (http:// www.exaronews.com) and with Oliver Wright on the Independent, put on a bravura show at the Leveson inquiry this week.

He insisted that  the wording on his website offering thousands of pounds to police staff, prison officers, doormen and nurses, for years  for  stuff on celebrity’s private lives had been a “mistake” and had only not been taken down until the exposure by Exaro because his website was ” broken.”

During the rest of the questioning by Robert Jay, the Leveson counsel, and Lord Leveson himself, he tried to portray himself as a ” White knight” fervently checking that any of these informers had not obtained salacious gossip by breaking the law  and making sure that our great tabloids from The People to the News of the World were not so foolish to indict innocent people on their front pages. Unauthorised  snatch photography with morals, so to speak.

He even provided a detailed example where an innocent referee who had engaged the wrath of Alex Ferguson was saved by Sprake’s due diligence from an exposure at a late night party that never took place.

But he has probably dished himself with Leveson over his explanation of the 330 surveillance jobs he has done, mainly for The People and the News of the World and his amoral view  that whatever the scandal was – his sole interest was whether it was true or not and ” morality and ethics” was something left to the editors. I don’t do ethics that’s for someone else, to put it simply .All this has been more eloquently covered today by Roy Greenslade in his Guardian blog – see http://bit.ly/MpYH81 .

What emerged in detail was his treatment of two stories for The People – the chasing up the McCanns on their first private holiday in Canada without Madeline. Evidently it was fine for The People to spend thousands of pounds sending a team of snatch photographers and a reporter  to Canada because in Mr Sprake’s word he was a ” celebrity” and wanted “to keep Madeline’s name in the public mind.” Now  I would think Gerry McCann is the last person to want to  be a celebrity, more a diligent father trying to get to the bottom of his daughter’s tragic disappearance – and if he wanted the publicity, he could have organised a photocall in Heathrow before he went away. Obviously he didn’t and  that wasn’t good enough for Sprate or The People. They were happy enough to invade their privacy on a well-earned holiday for loadsa dosh.

Similarly the ” ethical ” treatment of Andy Hayman, the Met Police chief who is alleged to have had an affair with someone from the Independent Police Complaints Commsision was considered fair game just because there was an inquiry. Did the People or anyone else have a shred of evidence that the inquiry was compromised or that Hayman was after illicit information? No. But it was worth £10,000 to Sprake for the pics. Hayman did resign but  there seem to far more serious allegations about him over the first hacking inquiry years later.

I am backing Roy Greenslade on this one. Mr Embley needs to be summoned by Leveson for further questioning. The need  for this is made more compelling now Roy Greenslade has revealed that the People’s picture editor, Mark Moylan, forgot to tell Leveson  that he did ANY business with Matt Sprake – now revealed as enormous by Sprake himself. See his new post at http://bit.ly/PqViXw.

Meanwhile just 15 or so minutes after I had  finished covering the Leveson inquiry myself I had a phone call on my mobile.

An anonymous friend of Mr ” Ethical , never done anything wrong, guvnor” Sprake warned me to lay off any further inquiries. They named  some  person  they think is supplying me with information that  led to Mr Sprake’s appearance before Leveson. Sorry mate, the steer came from someone else.

They signed off with a cordial affectionate greeting: ” You fucking geek “. Nice circles you move in , ex police snapper Matt Sprake.

Tax Avoidance:Treasury ” We screwed Up”,BBC ” Nothing is wrong.”

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Treasury mandarin Sir Nick Macpherson- admitting catalogue of errors Pic Courtesy: BBC

Yesterday Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee had the Treasury, the BBC, Revenue and Customs and local government before them. Subject: How have so many publicly paid figures got away with tax avoidance.

You could not draw more of a distinction between the evidence given by Whitehall and the BBC on the  same issue. There are are detailed reports by me and Mark Conrad on the Exaro news website ( http://www.exaronews.com) about the hearing.

Suffice to say Sir Nick Macpherson, permanent secretary to the Treasury, put his hands up. He admitted ” a catalogue of errors” had led Student Loans Company chief, Ed Lester, to get a £182,000 a year  job with the government and avoid having tax and national insurance deducted at source. Indeed Howard Orme, the financial director of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, admitted he originally wanted £260,000 a year to do the job.

The disclosure that 2400 Whitehall staff have personal contracts shocked Sir Nick. He was forthright: “The Treasury had been asking the wrong questions. We were concentrating on value for money and not on the tax implications. We should have looked have looked at the figures more carefully.”

Contrast this with the BBC’s chief financial officer,Zarin Patel, who despite disclosing that the BBC employs a third of staff – some 25,000 – as freelances and admitting that 148 of the 467 journalist talent are paid through personal service companies, thought there was no tax avoidance at all.

Patel said: “There is no difference to the HMRC whatever way this is done.” In other words it doesn’t matter.

Not a view shared by the committee, Margaret Hodge, the chair, pointing out there was nothing worse than ” a person paid by the taxpayer avoiding tax.”

Patel’s complacency was also shattered later when HM Revenue and Customs chief, Lin Homer, revealed the paucity of checks on these people who have personal service companies. She disclosed that over three years the number of checks had been 25,12 and 23 respectively. One MP  even wondered whether this should be made public because it would only encourage more tax avoidance and evasion. This is now going up to 230 – but with 3,000 non journalists at the BBC on personal service contracts alone – how much difference will this make. More grist to the case presented by Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, that the Revenue is indeed well understaffed to do its job.

More interest for Freedom of Information freaks – it emerged that the information I got through  the freedom of information request  which blew the whole story – is now to be used as a case study by Whitehall of how something can go wrong ( or at last I hope so!).

The London borough of Barnet also emerged in its true colours . Evidently it had not replied to a request from the Local Government Association to disclose how many senior staff were on personal service contracts – the number according to the redoubtable Mrs Angry @brokenbarnet is 13. But Mps appear to be on the case – they will need to be vigilant, Barnet has a habit of not co-operating with anyone who wants information.

The hearing was a success. The next stage will be to ensure there is proper action to get these wheezes stamped out, the sooner, the better. And of course end the BBC’s complacency over this issue.

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now with full cast of characters to appear before MPs

davidhencke's avatarWestminster Confidential

On Monday BBC chiefs will appear before Parliament’s most powerful committee, the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

They will be there to answer questions on the vexed question of employing people through personal service companies to avoid paying tax and national insurance at source.

The BBC will be joined be civil servants from Whitehall and local government who have all been exposed of using this device to employ people and avoid paying tax and national insurance at source.

The scandal was first exposed by me on the ExaroNews website (http://www.exaronews.com)  and BBC Newsnight when it was discovered that Ed Lester, the Student Loans chief, had used this device to be paid £182,000 a year.

The furore that followed led Danny Alexander,Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to launch an inquiry which discovered that another 2500 civil servants were using the same device across Whitehall. The review’s findings were also leaked to…

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Ex Met Police snapper to face Leveson Inquiry over cash offers to public officials

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Lord Justice Leveson ; Pic courtesy Leveson Inquiry website

Update: There is a report today (wednesday) on the exaronews website (http://www.exaronews.com ) of today’s hearing where Matt Sprake  defends himself.

 Matt Sprake, the former Met Police forensic police photographer, has been summoned by Lord Leveson to appear  before his inquiry.

This follows the exposure by me on Exaro News website (http://www.exaronews.com)  and with Oliver Wright in the Independent last week.( http://ind.pn/M48suc ) which  revealed his http://newspics.co.uk  website was offering to pay thousands of pounds to police, prison and probation officers for tips on celebs having affairs. There is a new article on the site now.

Just to remind readers – as he has taken it down now – the wording included  the phrases:

Officials are told: “All sorts of people have been paid thousands of pounds by us for giving information that leads to a picture being sold or a story being written, are you a doorman, police worker, civil servant, probation officer, prison officer, nurse? Make some extra money without anyone ever knowing…”

The agency website has endorsements from the picture desk of The People, the red-top Sunday tabloid, OK magazine, the celebrity title, and the Press Association, the national news agency.

In a section headed “news exclusives”, the agency tempts public officials to provide details of “a scandal” or, “where a prominent person is living or what they get up to,” or, “a celebrity having an affair”.

“You can earn yourself good cash now by calling… 24 hours a day and remember, nobody ever needs to know it was you that told us!”

Mr Sprake’s forthcoming appearance was announced on the Leveson inquiry website this afternoon. Among those appearing on the same day – next Wednesday – will be Max Mosley.

Lawyers for the Levenson Inquiry had asked to see the articles on Exaro News and the Independent after they appeared. They have also examined his website.

So next Wednesday Mr Sprake will be able to explain in public exactly what is going on. He has also put a complaint into the Press Complaints Commission against the Independent  about  last week’s article. I look forward with interest to the next event.

Exposed: The Ex Met Police snapper’s website offering “cash for celeb scoops” to public officials

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Matt Sprake: Trying Out the PM’s chair in the Cabinet Room in the 1990s while on the Met Police pay roll. Pic courtesy his Facebook page

Given the Leveson Inquiry is in full swing  can  you imagine this appearing on  a website supplying the national media – from the People to the Press Association?

” Do you know of a story, a scandal, something that made you interested, chances are that a newspaper will pay for that information.  Do you know where a prominent person is living or what they get up to, is a celebrity having an affair that you know of, do you know anyone who’s on reality TV?  You can earn yourself good cash now by calling 01277 (deleted) 24 hours a day and remember, nobody ever needs to know it was you that told us!

All sorts of people have been paid thousands of pounds by us for giving information that leads to a picture being sold or a story being written, are you a doorman, police worker, civil servant, probation officer, prison officer, nurse?  Make some extra money without anyone ever knowing…

Never go direct to a newspaper, come to us, it’s what we do, we are better positioned to get you much more cash. ”

The full story  on this is available  at http://www,exaronews.com   and on the Independent at http://ind.pn/M48suc. Since the disclosure the website has been rapidly redesigned and the page taken down but the website page is captured on the exaronews.com website.

Part of his agency’s website is devoted to its “surveillance photography”, offering a menu of services, including “covert foot follows”, “covert vehicle follows” and ”remote technical surveillance”.

“You can utilise the very same skills that are used by the security services and the police,” clients are promised.

“Our surveillance team has worked for and been trained by various police and government surveillance agencies within the UK. If you need it photographed without being seen, we are your experts.”

So what is the  explanation of the managing director  of  http://newspics.co.uk ,  ( one Matt Sprake, whose company is owned by his wife, Marion, described in her Companies House return as a banker.

According to him  the wording on his agency’s website was “just advertising” aimed at the “general public”.

He said that he would have removed it by now but for the fact that his website is “broken” and cannot be edited because the company that created it went bust.

“We are in the final stages of a company redesigning our website,” he said. “If there was a way of changing it, believe me, I would.” That seems to have  happened remarkably quickly after  the story was published.

On the social-media website, Myspace, he puts his income at between £100,000 and £150,000 a year.

Sprake continued: “I used to work for a specialist department at the Met in Scotland Yard looking, basically, at terrorism work. The level I was working at involved very covert stuff.

“I got out after 10 years. You are limited on the number of years you are allowed to do, so I am now doing other work. But I have still got all that training that is very handy to have.”

He also claimed his staff adhered to the Press Complaints commission code and his site promised to do surveillance work which would be covered by the Code.

The PCC were not so impressed – a spokesperson pointing out the code covered editors of papers not agency photographers.

I tried to contact Trinity Mirror publisher of The People- whose editor has already given evidence to Leveson . Their pages are all over his website including the page offering cash to public officials. But answer came there none.

One cannot  wonder why the reputation of the media is at such a low with such behaviour. If Sprake is telling the truth, it seems to me the height of folly and hubris  in these troubled times to put this on a website. If he is not this is exposing something else that is not particularly savoury and very worrying for ethical standards in the media and the people who are supplying him.

Q:Who’s afraid of the big bad Fox? A:The Charity Commission

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Liam Fox:Back in the News Pic courtesy:Metro

So Liam Fox is back from the political dead after having to quit as defence secretary.  How interesting! It comes after a little noticed report  from the Charity Commission into the affairs of  his doomed charity, Atlantic Bridge.  Conveniently it closes down any further investigation into his dubious past.

Remember this was the charity that promoted the Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan view of Anglo-American relations and gave a Margaret Thatcher Freedom medal to Henry Kissinger.

 The Charity Commission would never have looked at it if it had not been the persistence of Stephen Newton the Labour blogger who lodged a complaint. The charity run by Mr Fox and his best man, former special adviser,Adam Werrity ( remember him too?) was found not to be a charity, not have charitable purposes and was also operating in breach of Parliamentary rules from Liam’s office in the House of Commons.You might have thought after the furore  over the Smith Institute which was dragged through a formal inquiry for being too close to Gordon Brown,you would get  a devastating critique from them. You’d be wrong.

The report reveals that because it was a faux charity – HM Revenue and Customs demanded that some £50,000 in back tax, which according to the Financial Times, was paid by Tory donor.billionaire City trader Michael Hintze. See http://on.ft.com/N5zxqS as part of a £53,478 loan to the charity from his hedge fund company CQS.

However the Charity Commission did not believe any of the trustees or for that matter their advisory board were culpable so it could not recover the money from them. As the report says: “in taking such proceedings it would need to be clear that the trustees were sufficiently culpable in law to make good the loss and the proceedings were in the public interest.”

It added that there was ” no evidence the trustees acted in  bad faith” and “no compelling evidence of deliberate wrongdoing.” It accepted the evidence from the trustees that they just thought they were acting lawfully and its was perfectly proper to set up a charity to pursue the political objectives of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Of course it could just be that  Professor Patrick Minford of Conservative Way Forward, Lord Astor of Hever, a hereditary Tory peer, and the lobbyist Andrew Dunlop a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, were a load of naive gits who didn’t have a clue how a charity works or an inkling of charity law. And of course their board of advisers was not stuffed with clever worldly political activists – it  was only composed of William Hague, George Osborne and Michael Gove.

And Liam Fox is so innocent he seems to have forgotten to declare some other US lobbying appointment in his ministerial interests, according to revelations in today’s Political Scrapbook.http://politicalscrapbook.net/

Curiously Dame Suzi Leather . chair of the Charity Commission, could have referred the matter up to Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, to rule on whether there was a case to answer. But conveniently for  Dominic he was not placed in such an embarrassing position.

Of course it was different for the Smith Institute – everybody knows that Gordon Brown and Ed Balls  were  through Wilf Stevenson (now Lord) manipulating charity law and unlike Liam Fox had to be taken to task in much stronger terms. 

Job not well done, Dame Suzi. But I am sure you will be up for peerage as soon as your appointment ends, as a thank you for saving the present Establishment a lot of angst.

Guido Fawkes/Harry Cole v Tom Watson/Sunny Hundal: The changing blogosphere

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Paul Staines – aka Guido Fawkes – poshed up for Leveson inquiry. Pic courtesy: intimes.co.uk

Two and a half years ago when this website was set up  blog hits were at best in hundreds worst in tens.

Now blog hits are best in thousands and worst in hundreds. But last week saw a significant turning point. Not only were they a record number of hits that week -but  more important  it is where they were coming from.

Two of the biggest hits in the past – the post on whether Labour could be go bankrupt because of interest payments to Blair’s donors- and Maude’s Madrassa- the story of Francis Maude’s letting arrangement to Tory special advisers – hit large numbers because they were mentioned on Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines) website. I admit the initial success of this ex Guardian hack’s website was boosted by the  free market Tory right.

 Last week the blog revealing  the leaked memo (first and only in full on  http://www.exaronews.com ) from Nick Chapman, chief executive of NHS Direct, admitting they couldn’t get contracts and the excessive strip searching of Afro-Caribbean women  and abusive and appalling treatment of a gay man at  Gatwick Airport were ignored by Guido.

Tom Watson MP in reflective pose.Pic courtesy: The Guardian

Yet because  the NHS Direct memo taken up on Twitter by Sunny Hundal (of Liberal Conspiracy) and Tom Watson MP ( with 25,000+ and 83,000 followers each) the NHS Direct blog – over 5000 and still rising –   is now the first blog beating the Labour Party crisis blog on 4,345. The Gatwick Airport blog -on 2120 was also boosted by appearing on Political Scrapbook and taken up by the Pink Paper and the international gay community.

To me this tells me two things. The right wing’s  dominance of the blogosphere is at an end- it is now a healthy level playing field between the right and left fighting over the political issues of the day.

 Second it raises an interesting thought. If the growth of the blogosphere  fuelled by Twitter and Facebook continues like this over the next two years – are the Leveson# hearings on media control an irrelevance?

The irony is that new formal controls over the official media be in place on a declining industry  while the  expanding blogosphere will become the place where issues are debated. Tom Watson’s followers are almost the equivalent of the number of Independent readers and Guido Fawkes at 75,000 is not far off. I have a far more modest 3142.

I suspect no politician  – Tory, Labour, UKIP or Liberal Democrat – would dare impose controls over the  blogosphere. To do so would risk a Tahrir Square style rising from both Left and Right.

Exclusive: Shame of Gatwick’s “strip search ” security staff who target blacks and gays

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An inappropriate strip search – picture caption: Pbase.com – not at Gatwick

An extraordinary damning report revealing appalling practices by UK Border Agency staff at Gatwick Airport has gone almost unnoticed and unreported in the run up to Britain’s plan to welcome millions of people from abroad to celebrate the Olympics.

It reveals that overzealous, badly trained and unsupervised staff appear to be singling out Afro Caribbean women for unjustified strip searches and humiliating gay people in public at Gatwick’s North Terminal.

While government ministers, pop stars and airline staff are being allowed to leave and enter the country completely unchecked. through the VIP Sussex  Suite, putting border security at some risk, the cavalier way staff have treated the general public defies belief.

The findings are from no other impeccable source than John Vine, independent chief inspector of the Border Agency,whose highly critical report can be found here. (http://bit.ly/MIMZS6 ).

 It revealed that Afro Caribbean visitors to Britain have been subject to unjustified and possibly illegal strip searches . The searches were spectacularly unsuccessful in finding any illicit goods– with 96 per cent yielding nothing.

The report says  far more women seem to have been targeted for strip searches than men. Twice as many African and Afro-Caribbean people were searched compared to white people. “We found that 16 out of the 24 identified strip searches undertaken involved women. Given that only 30 of the 108 passengers subject to person searches involved women, this indicates that at least 54% of the female passengers stopped and searched were strip searched compared with between 11% – 20% of the men subject to a person search.”

He comments:“Indeed, even in the majority of the identified strip searches conducted (14 out of 24) there did not appear to be a sufficient basis to justify any type of person search, let alone a strip search.

He goes on: “The failure to observe the correct recording procedure can render evidence inadmissible in court and mean officers could face charges of assault in relation to the conduct of person searches.”

 “The extent of any discriminatory practices should be investigated and action taken to ensure officers both understand and comply with the Agency’s duties under the Equality Act 2010.”

As bad were the treatment of gay people. The report describes how one gay person was stopped and had his luggage searched in public and with other passengers passing by.  A request for a less public search was refused twice.

The report is worth quoting in full: “The contents of the passenger’s bag were then openly displayed including photographic equipment. The officer subsequently left the passenger to undertake background checks and later emerged signalling that the passenger could continue on their way. The officer then commented to another officer that the passenger was HIV positive; the colleague then advised that the searching officer should use stronger hand gel. These comments were made within earshot of the passenger and indeed other passengers in the channel.

When subsequently asked why this passenger had been stopped immediately after this interaction, the officer commented that the passenger‘looked like he might be involved in paedophilia’ and then went on to say that ‘the presence of the camera and the fact he had a boyfriend confirmed this’ (no photos were examined).

Notebook records of this exchange were not kept. The inspector describes this as” inappropriate and  unprofessional.”

You might say this is an understatement. Compare this to other parts of the report which reveal a casual attitude to people bringing in cannabis and a lack of consistency over allowing people with  excess cigarettes and alcohol to  bring it into the country. And aircraft are rarely searched – despite one being discovered with cocaine hidden in its panels.

Real Queues at Gatstrip -sorry Gatwick Airport. Pic Cap: The Guardian

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of Public and Commercial Services Union, said: “Some of these findings are very troubling, and it is not the first time John Vine has criticised UKBA, but they are symptomatic of the parlous state the agency is in as a result of massive cuts to staff. UKBA has been left unable to cope, and not just with the queues for passport checks, but with the wide range of services it operates and if further planned cuts go through the situation will get even worse. To prevent this, the government must put a stop to these cuts and start properly investing in staff and the vital services they provide.”

Frankly this is not all that is wrong. It is time the Government got a grip of what looks like a disgraceful racist and homophobic situation at Gatwick before lots of other people are treated like this  – apart from the VIPs of course who are NOT subject to such  treatment.

 There is also  evidence of similar problems in a more recent inspection of Heathrow Terminal Three. The report says: “Person searches were not considered to be justified and proportionate in 31 of the 46 (67%) cases that we reviewed…The finding that unjustifiable strip searches may be taking place at Terminal 3 replicates our inspection findings from Gatwick North. This indicates that this problem is not isolated to one terminal and as a result we believe that Border Force needs to take action to address this issue promptly.”

If  you are reading this and have been treated either to a unwarrented and illegal strip search, homophobic reactions or found that Gatwick  or Heathrow adopted a lax attitude to border controls, contact me at david.hencke@gmail.com and it could go much further than just a report on this website.

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Given David Gauke’s appearance in Parliament today

davidhencke's avatarWestminster Confidential

Today the website graduatefog reports that David Gauke has been reported to HM Revenue and Customs for being in breach of the minimum wage legislation for offering an unpaid ” training post” in his constituency. As readers of this blog know this is not the first time he has had advertised for a six month unpaid vacancy. So perhaps HMRC should take other recent appointments into consideration.+
Since this blog appeared Mr Gauke has attacked as ” morally repugnant” people who pay cash to builders, cleaners etc. if they beleive it is part of tax avoidance. But presumably this does not arise for his interns – as they work for free anyway.

After a Budget that gave  tax cuts for the rich and pay freezes and job losses for the poor, step forward, David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, forced to answer questions on the pasty tax U turn today. He is…

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Scrap red tape, silence a whistleblower

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Whistleblowers under threat

 MPs begin to debate the government’s new  Enterprise and Regulatory Reform bill today (monday). Buried in this legislation in Clause 14 is a plan to limit people with employment contract disputes using the whistleblowers law.

The reasoning behind it is explained in the latest House of Commons Library report on the bill. It says:

“In March 2012, the Department issued its annual employment law review which stated: It has come to light through case law that employees are able to blow the whistle about breaches to their own personal work contract, which is not what the legislation (Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA)) was designed for.

Clause 14 would ensure that only disclosures that are in the public interest would attract protection under the whistleblowing provisions of the Employment Rights Act,1996.”

Superficially this sounds quite reasonable.  Whistleblowing legislation should not be used for personal contract disputes. But the way the government is going about this it could sound the death knell for potential whistleblowers just at a time when they are most needed.

Think for one second. A company gets a complaint from a whistleblower about a  nefarious practice. What better way to frighten a whistleblower than by going to the courts claiming this is not in the public interest and demanding a hearing before a judge. The company can then rubbish the whistleblower using the absolute privilege afforded by court hearings for maximum publicity  by claiming the complainer is  a bad worker, in breach of contracts etc – damaging the whistleblower’s reputation.

 There then follows a long dispute about what should be a public interest test – since this until now is only used in Freedom of Information Act disputes in tribunals – with different  judges  defining it in different ways. As Lord Touhig, a whistleblower champion said in a Lords debate: ” This would make a field day for lawyers.”

But there could be another agenda. The government’s fast track privatisation programme for public services has already led to  whistleblowers revealing bad practice as shown in the recent private hearing of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. There I am told two Tory MPs put pressure on the committee not to hear in public whistleblowers’ allegations about bad practice in A4e, the private work provider, which has £200m of Department of Work and Pensions contracts.

The next day the Daily Telegraph leaked some of  their evidence and Chris Grayling, the minister for work but one suspects sympathetic to  A4e, used an appearance on BBC Newsnight to cast doubt on the motives of the whistle blowers.  Has he got DWP files on them I wonder or did A4e brief his press office or special adviser?

Now the Guardian’s splendid Rajeev Syal is reporting that Osita Mba, who blew the whistle on former Revenue chief  Dave Harnett’s secret  tax deal for bankers Goldman Sachs, has found himself being investigated by the criminal investigations unit of  Revenue and Customs. (see http://bit.ly/Mo5oXF )

It seems to me that people should back the campaign by Cathy James, chief executive at Public Concern at Work (http://www.pcaw.org.uk )  to stop this piecemeal change. At the very least the clause should be redrafted to define what should be excluded as a personal contract rather than submitting everything to a public interest test. Otherwise the public have every right to believe that the government has something very different in mind.