Should ministers be able to snoop on your calls and e-mails? Enter a competition to have your say.

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computer snoopers? pic courtesy itelegraph.co.uk

Update: Since this was published the deadline has been extended to December 14, so you still have a chance to enter.

Can you out Craig  John Craig on Sky News? Are you more outrageous than blogger  Guido Fawkes?  Can you be more angry than Richard Littlejohn or Peter Hitchens? If you are a budding journo aged 14 to 18 and take an interest in politics, there is rather good competition you can enter. The subject this year is privacy and the internet – and whether  the government should be able to access stuff on your mobile phone calls, trace your e-mails and see which websites you have visited. The competition is run by the Parliamentary Press Gallery – the hacks who write for the press, write blogs and broadcast on radio and TV from Parliament. You must have a view on this – so why not write an article or a blog or put together a radio or TV report.

You can get all the details at http://www.writenow.org.uk  . But hurry you only have until November 10 to get an entry in. If you win you will get a day in the House of Political Intrigue and be able to meet some of the more colourful characters in the media and MPs.

Coleman charges: How Eric Pickles has failed councils and the Tory Party

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Brian Coleman: An embarassment created by Eric Pickles. Pic courtesy: New Camden Journal

Update: Since this blog appeared Grant Shapps, chairman of the Conservative Party  has  finally suspended Coleman from national party membership though he still says he is a local Tory councillor. He appeared before Uxbridge magistrates on November 5 and pleaded not guilty to  an offence of assaulting by beating a local cafe owner, Helen Michael.  He has been bailed to appear before magistrates on February 6 when the case will be heard.

Full reports on this are on the @BarnetBugle and @ BrokenBarnet websites.

The news that  London’s former fire chair and Barnet councillor, Brian Coleman, has now been charged with assaulting local cafe owner Helen Michael and driving without proper caution is perhaps not surprising. Obviously as he will be appearing at Hendon magistrates on November 5 there can be no comment on the case.

But there is plenty of comment that can be made about Richard Cornelius, the leader of the Tory Party in Barnet and now self-serving arbiter of council standards in the borough. He has decided that despite Mr Coleman  being charged that there is no need to suspend him from the Tory Party pending the court’s decision.

As Mrs Angry says in her excellent blog today ” this is preposterous” ( http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/). He uses the lame excuse that somehow to suspend Mr Coleman would interfere with the judicial process. Like hell it would!

But there is a wider issue here. Mr Cornelius can only do this thanks to the decision of Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, to abolish in the name of  localism, the Local Government Standards board last January. By no means perfect, this board did set standards for England and councils would have to be very wary about ignoring its decisions. Indeed councillors had no choice but to stand down.

My old colleague and hero, Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian. warned of this in a prescient article before Mr Pickles acted. You can read it here ( http://bit.ly/XOyTWv) and everything he says applies to what is happening in Barnet now.

I hear rumours that Barnet Tories have checked the present law and even if Mr Coleman is convicted he could stay in office –  provided he doesn’t spend three months or more in prison.

Frankly this is both damaging to the standards required in local government and to the Conservative Party in particular. It gives the impression that there is one law for Tories, and another for the rest of the public. It chimes well with the recent behaviour of Andrew Mitchell, the former chief whip, who swore at the police, and sits very badly with David Cameron’s initiative on Monday for tough intelligent justice.

It is time someone quoted Henry II and said ” Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” and put Coleman out of the picture (not of course as brutally as the four knights) before he does even more  damage to politics.

Finally  as @BrokenBarnet reports the local Tory leader acted and started procedures to suspend Brian Coleman though he is still a member of  the Conservative group at the moment.

Richard Cornelius, the Tory leader said:”I am initiating the process of suspending Councillor Coleman from the Conservative Group. There are group rules that need to be followed and I must abide by these rules.
“Due process must be followed and I will update as and when I can.”

Exclusive: How Teflon Theresa dismembered “Two Brains” over London Met University

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David Willetts: Two dismembered brains? Pic courtesy: The Guardian

Update: Three hours after Exaro News revealed the delay, London Metropolitan University announced it was scrapping the scheme altogether. A statement said it was going  to call in fresh consultants and  start again. It has abandoned the tendering exercise. David Willetts has truly lost everything over this.

The  furore over the threatened deportation of thousands of overseas students studying at London Metropolitan University is well-known. What is not so well-known is the political battle between two prominent ministers, Theresa May, the home secretary, and David Willetts, the universities minister – known as ” two brains” because of his formidable intelligence, over the heart and soul of Tory policy.

The train crash happened at the London Met because two different Tory policies collided with each other. Theresa is a champion of curbing illegal immigration. David Willetts is a champion of university privatisation. Successful and profitable privatisation however depends on attracting more- not less – immigration to the UK in the form of overseas students. The London Met, as we shall see below, was his pet project.

The two ministers were at loggerheads before this started and so far Theresa has outwitted  brainy Willetts.

Theresa May: Pic courtesy: The Guardian

The clue is revealed  in the court case that London Metropolitan brought to try to overturn the ban on recruiting overseas students. Here it is revealed it was Theresa May not the UK Borders Agency that ordered the ban. It was a political not an operational decision. Here I am indebted to Andrew McGettigan whose critical education site is well worth following. ( See     http://andrewmcgettigan.org/2012/09/24/update-on-london-metropolitan/  )

Now why was this decision so damning to Willetts? Well it was taken almost on the day London Met was to decide which private bidder – from BT Global, Capita and Indian firm Wipro – would take over running the university and win a £74m five year contract. Not only was this the biggest contract for a university in the UK but if successful  the private company could offer to run other universities, making the contract worth a staggering £500m. Full details are in my articles in Exaro News (http://www.exaronews.com)

Now Willetts and George Osborne had staked a lot on this and it was smashed overnight. Willetts is closely connected to Malcolm Gillies, vice-chancellor of the university. His former special adviser Jonathan Woodhead, is now  a £75,000 a year executive reporting directly to the vice-chancellor. Both Willetts and Gillies are strong advocates of what they call ” shared services” which allow a private company to take over the running of everything at a university with the exception of the teaching and the vc’s office.

George Osborne had been helpful by creating a hardly noticed change to VAT legislation this year -exempting private companies bidding for shared ownership schemes from being liable for VAT. At a stroke this cut their bid price by 20 percent.

But the uncertainty surrounding whether London Metropolitan University will get back its special status to recruit overseas students means that no private company is likely to touch the deal as they won’t know the size of the university or whether the university can survive at all without overseas students. And even though the university is appealing there is no date set for the judicial review.

So at a stroke Willetts’ pet privatisation scheme has been put on hold. Indeed altogether not a good year for Willetts. A separate plan to introduce a bill extending the rights of private universities to award degrees has been shelved for a year and he was the person who appointed Ed Lester, head of the student loans company, to his job under a ” tax avoidance” scheme that has now been vetoed,increasing Mr Lester’s tax bill.

Willetts has also in Tory terms been outclassed by the more radical and dangerous Michael Gove. Indeed if Willetts was a state school, his performance to date would mean he would be hived off to the private sector after failing his Ofsted.

Revealed: How Birthday Boy Dave really wooed Sam Cam

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Samantha and David Cameron

Early on the Tuesday morning of the Tory conference while dosy hacks were still sleeping off the effects of late night parties,  a dapper 46 year old man was doing a spot of  exclusive shopping.

Taking advantage of privileged access to the most secure shopping mall in the UK  PM Dave and  his minders were planning a surprise present to placate his long-suffering wife. It might be his birthday but  Sam, the love of his life was getting a mite fed up with Devon B& Bs and kicking her heels  in airports waiting for easyJet flights. She was none too pleased that the birthday meal had to be at a simple Balti to assuage the austerity instincts of the  British people when there is fine dining  all over the Cotswolds.

Luckily for the PM the Birmingham conference plays host  for some of the most exclusive niche stores possible. Harvey Nicks, Tory donating Crombie and Quo Vadis, a   Birmingham jeweller, which makes unique  and exquisite pieces from precious stones.

Now what would Dave choose. Was it to be a 100 per cent cashmere ladies shawl wrap coat –  in Sam Cam’s fashionable black – retailing at £1275 from Crombies? The most expensive coat in the rack.

That could please her and a Tory donor to boot.

Or was it to be an exquisite piece of jewellery – the most expensive brooch  in the stall by Quo Vadis. This brooch of an ocean-going liner was made from an Australian boulder opal stone, its decks were made of diamonds and it had three 18 carat gold funnels. It was also the most expensive item in the shop – retailing at £5800.

Purchase this and a small businessman – the bed rock of the Tory Party – would be thrilled. But it  might remind Sam Cam of the Titanic, not an auspicious moment.

And then there was Harvey Nicks. They could sample their £50 of late bottled port and their champagne was not that exclusive, only up to £42 a bottle.

Perhaps the answer was a packet of wild jasmine tea – at £8.50 sufficiently exclusive – with the flowers searched out by hunter gatherers, true entrepreneurs  prepared to go the extra mile to find the petals and not strangled by  the EU bureaucracy of the social chapter.

Of course it can’t be said with the Leveson inquiry into press behaviour pending, exactly what Dave brought for Sam. It would be an intrusion of privacy. But what is not fiction are the prices of the goods on sale for the Tory faithful  in this secure shopping venue at a time when  people have difficulty making ends meet. As the woman from Harvey Nicks told me: ” We only come to the Conservatives, we don’t do Labour or the Liberal Democrats”. Enough said.

Press Complaints Commission: defending legitimate journalism

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Lord Hunt: Current chairman of the Press Complaints Commission: pic courtesy: The Guardian

It may be unfashionable to say this right now,but this is a blog to say how well and fair the Press Complaints Commission handled a complaint against me this summer.

I was not even a party to the complaint which was between Matt Sprake, a former police photographer, and the Independent Newspaper but the content of his entire complaint was against me over a story that appeared under my name and Oliver Wright which I had researched and published on Exaro  News . (see http://www.exaronews.net for full story and pcc’s findings).

Basically  through Exaro News we revealed  how Sprake’s picture agency, NewsPics, offered to pay thousands of pounds to public officials – from nurses to police workers – for inside information on celebrities. Sprake denied he had ever paid anyone.

The offer was made explicitly on the agency’s website.

Matt Sprake: PIc courtesy of Hacked Off website

The disclosure led to Sprake being summoned by Lord Leveson to appear before his inquiry and provide information on the huge scale of his  work for Trinity Mirror which Lloyd Embley, then editor of the People, had omitted to tell them.

Sprate lodged a complaint to the PCC claiming that  breached the editors’ code of conduct. He claimed that the article contained inaccuracies and intruded into his private life, and that I had used subterfuge to gain information about his past career in the police.

The PCC dismissed each element of Sprake’s complaint particularly suggestions that his family had been put at risk by the disclosure that he had photographed terrrorist sites. The findings said:

“He considered that the information relating to his former employment by Scotland Yard in anti-terrorism activities was sensitive and confidential.”

But the PCC concludes: “The complainant had volunteered information about his former work with the police, including that he had been ‘looking at terrorism work’, to the journalist, whom he had taken to be a potential client, and was a stranger to him; and that the information amounted to a statement of his former occupation.

“In addition, in light of the statement published on the website, which suggested police officers contacted the company with information, and the on-going public scrutiny and debate over the links between the police and the Press, there was a public interest in revealing the complainant’s former work with the police.”

Sprake also complained that I had tricked him in a telephone conversation into revealing his past career in the police. The PCC said that Sprake was confused about the purpose of the reporter’s telephone call to him, but concludes: “The commission could not therefore agree that the reporter had engaged in misrepresentation or subterfuge.”

Sprake was asked for comment on the findings and he said: “None at all.”

Now the good  and fair thing  about this judgement is that the PCC did not fall for such sweeping complaints from someone who had already admitted to Leveson about how he pursued the McCanns seeking intrusive photos when they had not wanted them on a  Canadian holiday. But I also had to justify  everything I had written – and had kept a recording of the call. The whole point of chasing him up was to allow him to give me his side and to be absolutely certain from his own words that he was an ex  police photographer.

The irony about all this is that PCC is certain to be abolished by Leveson in its present form because of the ” phone hacking ” scandal. Yet they have handled this well. Whatever  replaces the PCC must both safeguard the public from the worst excesses of bad  and inaccurate journalism  but equally protect  genuine investigative  journalism from unfounded claims from unscrupulous complainants. Over to you, my Lord.

Silence of the Whistleblowers

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Knives out for A4e whistleblowers? Pic courtesy:snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.com

Today  confidential evidence given to MPs on Parliament’s most powerful committee of MPs by a team of whistleblowers on fraud should have become public.

The whistleblowers-  people once employed by two rapidly growing companies A4e and Working Links which are dominating the government’s welfare to work programme – spent two hours giving dramatic evidence in private to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee last May.

The result of their information and a frankly complacent performance by Robert Devereux, the patrician permanent secretary, to the Department of Work and Pensions led  to a damning report  by MPs on the ministry’s stewardship of  taxpayers’ money handed over to these profit-making companies.

As reported in Exaro News today ( see http://www.exaronews.com ) Tory and Labour MPs were disgusted at the ministry’s performance.

Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said: “The DWP’s arrangements for overseeing and inspecting its contractors were so weak that vital evidence on potential fraud and improper practice was not picked up.”

Richard Bacon, Conservative MP and deputy chairman of the committee, said: “Encouraging innovation and fresh approaches is important, but so is ensuring value for taxpayers. Providers cannot be allowed to run wild and free with public money.”

Margaret Hodge; Agrred to withold whistleblowers evidence

The evidence came from an appalling internal audit report prepared in 2009 by A4e’s own auditors and leaked to committee on the Exaro website which concluded:” found that more than one quarter of the company’s placements was potentially fraudulent, irregular or unverifiable. The jobs agency even placed one job-seeker at a Liverpool lap-dance club. Last May, Exaro published the auditors’ findings in full. That was under Labour.

But according to  one of the whistleblowers it continued under the Tories. Eddie Hutchinson, former chief auditor of A4e, told the committee in his submission of “systemic” fraud and malpractice at the company.

Hutchinson, worked at A4e from October 2010 until May last year, and at Working Links before that. He described what he saw at both companies as “a multi-billion-pound scandal”. This we only know because of his evidence was leaked to the Daily Telegraph. A4e insist that this eveidence is not true and the new company is now wonderful.

Today we should have had a more rounded picture with new evidence from other whistle blowers. The draft report would have included the minutes of that meeting and with names redacted all the information.

But just days before publication the whistleblowers, according to a top source panicked and asked the chair, Margaret Hodge, to censor all their evidence.

Why? All the whistleblowers were happy to give evidence in public last May but some Tory Mps, Chris Grayling, then the minister for work, and A4e were desperate for the public to know nothing. They stopped the public hearing. Billions of pounds of new contracts were at stake. Now ministers and A4e have got their way.  We are none the wiser. Have the whistleblowers been threatened?  Did they decide they had lied to the committee? Or is there a blacklist in the auditing profession to prevent people who blow the whistle from getting fresh work?

Today is a bad day for transparency and democracy when the most powerful committee in Parliament that holds the government to account cannot publish the facts. The government is making matters worse by changing the law protecting whistleblowers to make it even more unlikely they will risk their careers at the moment.

A4e as well should have been allowed to give evidence to the committee as well as the rather arrogant Mr Devereux. The company could then have put its case and been questioned on its performance. For those interested in the full or should I say half redacted report, it is here (http://bit.ly/PKPO9a ).

Fire Chiefs’ Warning: Don’t rely on a fire engine near you

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firefighters tackling a blaze. pic courtesy: shoutmeloud.com

Don’t tell any potential rioter, arsonist or terrorist, but if the coalition continue with their present cuts policy by the time of the next general election the forces to fight such evils will be  seriously weakened.

This is  the sober conclusion of six of the most senior fire officers in the country who have already had experience in implementing some of the biggest cuts since Nick Clegg and David Cameron came into power. They cover such big cities as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Bradford, Birmingham and Sheffield. Their phrase for what is about to happen – a further 27 per cent cut –  is ” potentially catastrophic.”

While the police have hogged the headlines the fire chiefs of a quarter of the most urban areas in England ( who strike me need a good public relations officer) have warned Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, that the service will not survive in its present form.

They exclude London where a botched privatisation has seen the capital’s fire service reliant on Lloyds TSB bank and machines serviced by a company snapped up by a baronet, Sir Aubrey Brocklebank, for £2.

The full story of the horrors facing the service can be read in my piece for exaro news ( http://www.exaronews.com) and also in the Independent  at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chief-fire-officers-warn-of-potentially-catastrophic-impact-of-cuts  and in Tribune magazine this week.

Suffice to say some very serious issues are being raised. Here a few of the quotes :

Steve McGuirk, chief fire officer of Greater Manchester, says: “A further 27 per cent disproportionate cut equates to a reduction of 11 whole-time crewed fire appliances, reducing frontline capacity by 24 per cent. All incidents requiring more than one fire appliance, which includes all domestic fires, commercial fires, secondary moorland/wild fires and other specialist incidents would have a slower effective response.”

Jamie Courtney, chief fire officer of South Yorkshire, says: “The extreme option of closing seven community fire stations would be necessary to absorb a further 27 per cent cut from the government grant. There would be an increase in deaths and injuries due to longer attendance times.”

His area incidentally include’s Nick Clegg’s Sheffield constituency.

West Yorkshire’s chief fire officer, Simon Pilling, said: “If the authority were to be faced with savings as great as 27 per cent, this could only be achieved through the ‘ad hoc’ and immediate closure of fire stations and the removal of appliances.”

Now this may sound alarmist but with a government committed to a 27 per cent cut over two years, this is not something that can be ignored and needs to be reversed.

Manchester was after all the scene of some of the worst riots just one year ago – and people are not going to thank the government if they is not enough manpower or machines to contain the  damage. Terrorism is also not unknown in Manchester either.

So far Eric Pickles has been pretty complacent. His spokesman saying :“Fire services can make sensible savings without impacting on the quality and breadth of services offered to communities. Such savings can include more flexible staffing arrangements, better sickness management, sharing back-office services, improved procurement and sharing chief fire officers and other senior staff.”

Yet if they read the submission officials would realise that all of this has already been done. For those wanting to see all the facts. the document is available from  Merseyside Fire here (http://bit.ly/Uy2Jzp) The chiefs are arguing about what they will have to cut next if the government  continues with its misguided cuts at this level.

Let’s hope that we don’t have endure another disaster before those in power  are convinced that some of these cuts are mad. Nobody wants to be left waiting to die in a burning building or in a motorway smash while under resourced services try to in vain to rescue them.

Sex and Violence: The different treatment of Tory councillors Holmes and Coleman

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Arrested and bailed; Brian Coleman

Last night Brian Coleman, the infamous former chair of the London fire authority and advocate of  mass privatisation, was arrested by police on suspicion of common assault after an incident outside a parade of shops in North Finchley.

He has been given police bail pending further inquiries into the alleged assault on  Buzz  cafe owner, Helen Michael, who fought a strong campaign against his privatised parking scheme during Coleman’s failed attempt to be re-elected as London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden. (See http://snipelondon.com/scoop/brian-coleman-arrested-on-suspicion-of-assault )

By sheer coincidence not many miles away  at St Albans magistrates court comments have been raised following another leading Tory pleading guilty to 23 charges of  creating and viewing child pornography, including  two extreme images. ( seehttp://bit.ly/Qr2osV) He will be sentenced on October 15.

Stephen Holmes, former Mayor of Dacorum and deputy chairman of Hertfordshire  children’s services, was also a leading advocate of Tory privatisation.

Let’s make it clear I am NOT linking the two men – I don’t know even if they know each other – nor suggesting that all privatisers are violent or paedophiles.

The link is to compare what the Conservatives have done about it. Dacorum Tories in Hemel Hempstead  immediately suspended Holmes following his arrest and he stood down as a borough and county councillor BEFORE even going to trial.

Stephen Holmes; Tories acted fast when police arrested him for keeping child pornography

Dacorum Tories are also looking  to appoint an independent ombudsman to look into complaints against councillors – particularly as people are asking what checks the party does when it selects candidates who are supposed to be trustworthy individuals.

Barnet Conservatives seem to indulge Coleman no matter what he says, what he does and who he insults. Given what happened last night it seems to me the Conservatives owe it to the electorate to suspend him from any remaining posts in Barnet and if found guilty they should demand his resignation.

If not Grant Shapps, the new chairman of the Tory Party  who knows all about Coleman, should insist the party takes action.

The Green Man of Wark

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Battlesteads Hotel: An ordinary country pub on the outside, but with a beating green heart inside

Just to show this website is not all doom and gloom  here is a heart warming story of a man who is showing how to  combat climate change.

Up a B road in a remoter part of Northumbria is the Saxon village of Wark. In this small community is the Battlesteads Hotel. As you can see above, on the outside it looks a very pretty ordinary country pub.

But this hotel is a pioneering green business and having just stayed there, I am more than impressed by the amazing efforts of the owners Richard and Dee Slade to create a comfortable environment that helps to save the planet.

Richard Slade preparing to pluck a rather large courgette for the pot!

This is not just the case of using low energy light bulbs and asking you to  reuse your towel – the normal lip service to ” green ” policies employed by Travelodge and other chains. Practically everything in this place you use is green or local.

The hotel is centrally heated and the hot water plentiful. But there is no gas or oil-fired boiler. The source is a large biomass boiler in an outbuilding fed by wood chip from  a sustainable forest less than mile away. A rainwater system  feeds organic vegetables , flowers and salads grown all the year round in polytunnels.

Breakfast and dinner also tick many of the low food miles boxes – with different cheeses coming Northumbria, Cumbria and Durham- beef from Northumbria  farms and low salt kippers smoked in the same county. And there are lots of real ales and some English wine.

And if you don’t finish your meal the residue from kitchen waste goes into a modern composter which produces the loam for the next generation of courgettes  and lettuces.

And there is more to come. He is planning to resurrect an old spring from a nearby farm helping drain the land. This will feed a new pond, to be the home for slug eating toads, frogs and Ken Livingstone note, newts.

And he has even  done his bit to thwart cuts ( despite bureaucratic opposition) from Northumbria Council by taking over the contract to supply Wark primary school with school dinners – after the authority withdrew the hot meals service to its schools. So a new generation of young Warkians are being sustainably fed – just like Saxon times. Jamie Oliver should approve, Michael Gove may not!

For the future this hotel is one of the few in the country – with an electric charging point for cars – beating Nissan’s planned production line for the vehicle by a year.

Up the road from Wark at Rothbury is the historic home of  Lord Armstrong, Cragside, home of Victorian arms manufacturer , innovator, who over a century ago as every Geordie should know- powered the first light bulb from hydro-electric power. The home is run by the National Trust (see http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cragside/).

Lord Armstong’s Cragside estate – on a slightly grander scale.

Lord Armstrong and Richard Slade have one thing in common – both are pioneers. One is historic, one is very twenty second century. No doubt climate change sceptics like Lord Lawson would think this is a waste of time., though I bet his daughter, Nigella , would enjoy the food!

One day all hotels will all be like this, but in the meantime if you want a comfortable break with good food and beer and don’t want to help destroy the planet. Visit! The website is http://www.battlesteads.com/.

PS – for the cynics among you – we paid out own way to stay!

Revealed: The Old Etonian Baronet who snapped up London’s fire engines for £2

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Sir Aubrey Brocklebank- a hooray henry owning all London’s fire engines for £2? Pic courtesy Daily Telegraph

This is Sir Aubrey Thomas Brocklebank,  6th Baronet Brocklebank, of Greenlands and Irton Hall, Cumberland.

He is now the proud owner – not just of a  battered 2cv  racing car as pictured  here – but of the entire fleet of fire engines owned by the London fire brigade. When you next have a fire in Greater London this is the man who will responsible that the crew arrive in a properly maintained and equipped fire engine.

In the mad world of  privatisation  Sir Aubrey was able to snap the fleet and  get his hands on an income stream worth nearly £200m over the next ten years – for JUST £2.

You the  council taxpayers will be paying this man £1.5m a month to look after London’s fleet. He got this  at a knock down price because  the Greater London Authority foolishly under Ken Livingstone and even more foolishly under Boris Johnson and former London fire chairman, Brian Coleman, sold off  London’s fire engines and a 20 year lease on its own maintenance headquarters in Ruislip to a private firm.

The firm was sold on to AssetCo ( which I have written about extensively) whose  own chief executive, John Shannon, had to be dismissed, when he left it teetering on bankruptcy. The actual engines are at present owned by bankers, Lloyds TSB, one of the chief creditors of AssetCo London which had over £30m in debts and haven’t a penny to  replace the ailing fleet of engines from 2014. This has been admitted by Sue Budden, director of finance,of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, . She told councillors at a meeting last week: “When they look ahead and look at the big vehicle replacement that is due to start in 2014, I think they can see they are not set up to cover that.” The full story by me is on the Exaro  news website at http://www.exaronews.com.

Step in Sir Aubrey who bought ailing  AssetCo for  £2 – without the fire authority or its staff- even knowing until the deal was signed. Such is the new world of privatised services – elected people aren’t even important enough  to know who owns them.

Now Sir Aubrey appears to be the scion of a very famous and powerful shipping family who owned two stately homes. One, Nunsmere Hall in Cheshire was built for his namesake, the third baronet, who went on to join the board of Cunard, and drew up plans for the original Queen Mary in the 1920s. The family have a steam locomotive on the narrow gauge Ravenglass and Eskdale railway named after them and in 1927 there was a swish saloon known as the Brocklebank.

The present Sir Aubrey  even graces the picture collection held by the National Portrait Gallery – with portraits of him and his first wife, Dr  Anna-Marie Dunnet, purchased by the gallery in 2004. He was also like the all the family, educated at Eton but too old at 60, to be a contemporary of London mayor Boris Johnson.

But a closer investigation reveals that  Sir Aubrey is not all he seems. Gone it appears are the two stately homes – both are now hotels. And Sir Aubrey  now remarried  with wife, Lady Hazel, is actually on the electoral register at a£162,500  three bedroomed semi in Stanwick, Wellingborough in Northants – in the constituency of Tory Mp, Peter Bone.

He doesn’t even own his house outright – he has a mortgage with the very democratic Nationwide building society.

It is at this address in July  that he set up a small private company A & AB Investments Ltd, which paid the princely sum of £2 for London’s fire engines. It is this company that is now the ultimate owner of London’s fire services. He has since set up another company Premier Fireserve, based at  the leased maintenance plant owned by the fire brigade.

Nor does he have any of the illustrious careers of his ancestors. Instead he is non executive chair of a series of venture capitalist funds, under the name Puma – who simply offer very good tax avoidance schemes – by investing in anything from hotels, property, antiquarian books – and then liquidating their investments after five years to secure maximum tax relief and returns for their investors. Hardly reassuring for such a permanent feature as providing a fire service which cannot be traded for tax  avoidance.

His only other passion is racing 2cv cars – with a  team known as Twin Snails. Indeed the elderly boy racer competed at Snetterton in Norfolk over the August bank holiday weekend in the British championships. His team have had mixed fortunes -doing better at Snetterton but coming a cropper at Brands Hatch -see http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisiehexagon/492921242/

Now you may think I am making  all this up. I tried to contact Sir Aubrey five times  to find out his side of the story. But he is shy and reclusive when it comes to the press – and he never returned my calls. I wonder why as I never bite.

But I think any reasonable person would think he is not the  first person you would want to run a public service and he hardly even has a particularly good business record. It is time he is held to account and I have great hopes that  Ex MP Andrew Dismore, the Labour assembly member for Camden and Barnet, will pursue him on our behalf by every means possible to find out the truth behind this, on the surface, very dodgy development.