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Journalists paid by UK government to promote chinese goods

John Robertson | 30.01.2010 13:26 | Culture | Globalisation | Workers' Movements

A government programme paid over £550 each in subsidised trips to sixty journalists & buyers every six months to report on shoes and clothes made overseas for London Fashion Week. MPs with shoe factories in their constituencies - Peter Bone in Wellingborough and Patricia Hewitt in Leicester East - did not write a single letter to protest..

Peter Bone MP is an accountant and MP for Wellingborough. His constituency has more shoe factories in it than anywhere else in the UK, but when the Sanders and Sanders factory was running-up to closure last year he showed no sign of knowing that the department for Business Innovation and Skills was subsidising the competition by sending buyers and journalists to report on glossy shows of Chinese shoes such as Terra Plana at London Fashion Week. If he did know that his constituents were paying taxes towards putting themselves out of work, he certainly didn't write a letter about it to the UK Trade and Investment, a ministerial agency which funds this joint scheme with London Development Agency. The department's only correspondence with him or the now-closed factory was a series of email tip-offs about export opportunities, such as overseas trade shows. They sent fifteen over about four years.

Patricia Hewitt MP is MP for Leicester West, another shoemaking area with an unemployment rate of 13.8% . Equity Shoes was a major local employer until closure in January 2009, with a recent payroll of 200 and a 100 at closure. Like Sanders, it was a tenacious company - Sanders was a family trust and Equity was a staff co-op, so neither closed lightly. Patricia Hewitt had every reason to know about the scheme to put her constituents out of work because she had to sign for it: she was secretary of state for trade and industry (now the department for Business Innovation and Skills) between 2001 and 2005. She could have picked-up the phone during any of those years and asked

"why are we subsidising the competition?".

It is not revealed what she said in the office when she was minister, but a recent freedom of information act request that she did not write a single letter on the subject of Equity Shoes to the department between 2005 and the end of January 2010, even after being tipped-off in November that the question was going being asked.

"We have completed a search of our electronic information management systems and we do not have any record of UK Trade & Investment having received letters from the MPs for Leicester or Rushden on the subject of UK shoe manufacturers. "

Published freedom of information requests & replies on Whatdotheyknow.com describe a scheme that UK Trade and Investment call the International Buyers Programme, funded over roughly four years and still in place.

"since September 2005, UK Trade & Investment have paid British Fashion Council £215,555. This funding is for the international buyers programme for London Fashion week. The aim of the programme is to bring the most significant and influential buyers and press to London Fashion week each season."

London Development Agency quotes "£120k more than budgeted for 2008/9 was spent on LFW support as funding was allocated to support the International Guest Programme to cover reduced funding from UKTI", but it still got "UKTI support during 2008/09" of £33,000. Some of the money may be counted twice as British Fashion Council is also sponsored by the Mayfair Hotel and British Airways "The official airline of London Fashion Week", which are both likely to have catered for these expenses-paid trips: ""The LFW International Guest Programme, supported jointly by LDA and UKTI, saw 60 key, targeted international press and buyers assisted in their visits to LFW, through flight subsidies and accommodation. These visitors are given welcome packs and are accompanied through their stay as they visit the exhibition, catwalk shows and showrooms. Feedback on media coverage generated and orders placed is collected after their visits."

Did the money achieve anything good?

There are attempts to quote outputs on the projects report to the London Development Agency, but the list omits manufacturers. The only figures broken down in any detail are figures of media coverage, reported by an agency paid for by British Fashion Council. And there are anecdotal quotes. It's not often that Vogue is quoted on Indymedia but we may even add to the list of outputs by repeating this quote:

""The Season London Shone" wrote US Vogue's Sarah Mower. "Who'd have thought that London would shine at its brightest during a crisis. London's Designers squared up to the fall with an exceptional out-flowing of creativity and polish ... that made Fall 2009 this city's most dazzling performance for years."

...ends. Sources:
"Record Figures for London Fashion Week"
 http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/news_details.aspx?ID=86

"AGREEMENT FOR FUNDING RELATING TO CREATIVE
SECTOR SUPPORT - DESIGNER FASHION Parties: LDA / BFC
Ref: 23300 QUARTERLY REPORT 2008/9: Q3&4 [biannual update]"
 http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/london_fashion_week_biannual_upd#comment-7716

"Consultation re closed UK shoe factories" information request and reply on Whatdotheyknow.com:
 http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/consultation_re_closed_uk_shoe_f_2#comment-8530

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_West

Pictures of Equity Shoes buildings post closure:
 http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=40786

John Robertson
- e-mail: via web site
- Homepage: http://www.veganline.com/news.htm

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Debt to Chinese

01.02.2010 21:49

Clearly, someone ought to be asking how much UK bonds the Chinese own. Bonds being government debt and debt owed to people who purchase Sterling.

insidejob


I'm missing something here

02.02.2010 15:41

I don't get the logic to this piece.

OK - the department for business spend several hundred thousand pounds flying foreign journalists to the UK for London Fashion Week, an opportunity for many British designers and British fashion companies to flog their stuff abroad. Sure enough, British shoe companies like carreducker got publicity in newspapers, and who knows, in the US fashion press.

So what have Chinese shoe companies got to do with this? They don't have a monopoly on shoes shown at an event in London, unless I've missed something. Please explain.

Norvello


Unfair trade and crass state intervention

02.02.2010 18:10

Good to see a range of comments. The extreme unfairness of trading terms involves currency policies by two banks, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, and the Bank of China. The English side of the game has been to hike-up the value of the currency as a way of encouraging cheap imports and so reduce inflation. They're open about this and it's on their web site but there's no corresponding policy such as a tax break to help those who's products can be easily bought and sold around the world. The second policy is more murkey - to me at least - and the first poster probably understands it better than me. The Bank of China restricts inward investment and encourages outward investment. Chinese goverment spending on things like schools and hospitals is minimised. The result is a very low currency, according to faircurrency.org in the US.

Given the situation and 38% unemployment rate in Leicester West for example, you'd expect the local MP to give it some thought but when Secretary of State for Trade and Industry it never seems to have crossed her mind that this rather crass subsidy for British designers could also be used to help British manufacturers at no extra cost. A few strokes of a pen could change the rules about who is allowed to exhibit at London Fashion Week so that exhibitors have to acknowledge where their products are made. I've just looked at the Carreducker website and they just write "made for us in England" without stating the factory's name. Such a change would give a few of the state-sponsored journalists something more interesting to write about and more of a chance of creating jobs for UK taxpayers. They'd even help sustain the fashion industry, which has trouble surviving if there are very few local factories left. And the harm they do by promoting a certain view of fashion which is separate from the manufacturer would be reduced,

 http://www.faircurrency.org/ - I don't claim to understand this too well
 http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/how.htm - the system that ran for 30 years of subsidising cheap imports by paying too much interest. It's the bottom line of arrows on the diagram below.
 http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/images/from_int_inf2.gif

John Robertson
mail e-mail: veg@musonix.demon.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.veganline.com


Goodiebags too

30.03.2010 10:52

Apparently journalists get goodiebags for reporting London Fashion Week. What would it take to get them to report on UK manufacturing?

Rocketman
mail e-mail: veg@musonix.demon.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.journalism.co.uk/66/articles/537692.php


Peter Bone - lifelong political activist

06.02.2013 11:30

I wrote that Peter Bone was an accountant and said nothing about Patricia Hewett, who was a lifelong party member & political activist.

I was unfair on Patricia Hewett. Peter Bone is a lifelong political activist too, and claims of a life outside politics are hard to interpret.

According to  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bone has experience as a councillor, party association chairman and press officer to a 1980s cabinet minister.

Peter Bone's web pages state an impressive connection with  https://www.duedil.com/company/01556732/varitext-displays-plc/ which had one founding director and existed for a few years until unable to pay creditors in 1993. There is a code for sending proportional-spaced fonts to traffic signs called Veritext, and companies of that name have existed but the relationship is not clear from company records on duedil.com

Profiles on linked-in and  https://www.duedil.com/director/902698773/peter-william-bone show directorships at three companies other than Veritext Displays based at residential addresses near Mr Bone's.

£50,0000 of value is shown in a political activist company called CNK Alliance
£50,0000 of debt is shown in a the travel company, AJWB Travel. A previous travel company, Palm Travel (West) Ltd was unable to pay creditors and liquidated in 2002, about the time AJWB started. It is not stated whether there is any connection betwen the £50,000 debt and £50,000 credit, but the activist company does write how it spends money when criticised by others.

"In reality the alliance spent just over £30,000 on the campaign in launching a website, and in producing and distributing a leaflet, DVD of doctors' interviews, briefing paper, a booklet analysing Lord Joffe's Bill and an internet television programme. No one member group contributed more than £5,000 to this total. "

Faith groups are also subsidised through grants to faith schools, which can ask favours of parents such as activism or attendance in exchange for places at the schools, allowing an appearance of relevance and popularity for their causes which are not reflected in national surveys. Mr Bone has attempted to pass a bill extending their privilage by automatically granting charitable status as though for public good to any faith group that applies to the charity commission.

Mr Bone has been a member for the Trade and Industry Select Committee at the same time that he wrote no letters to the department about it's attempts to promote Chinese goods at the expense of shoe factories in his own constituency:  http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/consultation_re_closed_uk_shoe_f_2#comment-8530

More recently, the Prime Minister has been in Africa making speeches about the terms of trade and aid between poorer countries and richer ones, and how to change the rules. This effects mining, agriculture and manufacturing more than other trades and might attract thoughtful comment from a midlands MP who wants to work for constituents. In Ethiopia, for example, there is a fair trade shoe factory, UK aid, and an EU tax break on tariffs but a spokesman for Human Rights Watch has questioned whether this is the best way to help tackle poverty there.

Meanwhile Mr Bone has spent his time sponsering a debate on the semantics of the word "marriage" in order to please faith groups.

Mr Bone's predecessor MP, Paul Stichcombe, was also an activist with experience as a barrister and speech-writer.

John Robertson trading as Veganline.com
- Homepage: http://www.veganline.com


Related news about the fashion industry and Bangladesh

08.07.2013 18:28

As the fashion industry debates Bangladesh, an odd pattern is emerging. People who call themselves ethical are avoiding debate about democracy or a welfare state - particularly in Bangladesh. At the same time they claim to be expert on it and get a lot of coverage in the press and as sources for teaching in fashion colleges.

 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/07/511228.html gives an idea.

The Ethical Fashion Forum "the trade body for ethical fashion" claims to have opinions and expertise on ethical fashion including "masterclasses" and "expert" sessions priced up to £225 if the tickets sell for their "Ethical Fashion Source Summit".

The same group is highly political in refusing to discuss the welfare state or democracy. One of their first members, Terra Plana shoes, published a blog post stating that China is "arguably more democratic than the UK". People have now stopped buying Terra Plana shoes and the brand is no longer used, but it's odd that the company was accepted as one of the first members of Ethical Fashion Forum and accepted for subsidised display in the Estethica room of London Fashion Week.

The Ethical Fashion Forum is quiet about democracy and the welfare state as well. One of their founder directors compared factories in the world as though there were no difference in the welfare states of China - where there is none - and London - where there is a good but over-worked one because of unfair trade. This is the quote...

Adam Vaughan, journalist:
"If we can generally guess what the problems are, can we shop by
country, picking good ones and bad ones? Usually you can see where
a product was made."

Clare Lissaman, taxpayer-funded consultant at the time:
"I don't think you can compare countries. You're just as likely to
have a sweatshop down the road here in London in the east end as
you are in China, India or Bangladesh. One of the best factories
I've come across in the world was in China. One of the worst
factories I've come across in the world was in China."

The Ethical fashion forum has another problem which is more urgent and I should not have put last. They have a web page urging caution in buying British goods on ethical grounds. The page has a number of arguments, none of them mentioning the welfare state that applies in the UK. It's under a section called "The Issues". They have been asked to reconsider it and have kept it there. It was written by Tamsin Lejeune, Managing Director of the Ethical Fashion Forum.

So I suggest that there is no point talking about trade with Bangladesh without saying that trade should require some kind of welfare state in that country, and some other necessities - I'm no expert - to make government transparent.

 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/07/511228.html is the link to a related indymedia artical about Ethical Fashion Forum and Ethical Fashion Source Network.

facebook.com/planB4fashion
- Homepage: https://www.facebook.com/planB4fashion


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