Fox appointed to look after chicken-coop!

The imminent attack on Iraq by US/British forces dominates the news globally and nationally and it is interesting to discover what the elected Government is doing "off-stage" while the public spotlight is understandably focused on the Middle East conflict.

The UK has had a "30 year rule" for decades; whereby Government documents deemed to be "sensitive" are stored for 30 years from the date of their creation. That is that records selected for retention as public records will not generally be available until 30 years after the creation of the latest part of the record, (Public Records Act 1958 amended by Public records Act 1967 (section 5(1)) but the Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine) and the appropriate Minister have wide discretionary powers to provide for longer or shorter timescales for particular types of records.

Each year about one mile of newly filed documents are added to the archives, which are currently under lock and key in a warehouse belonging to the Public Records Office at Hayes in Middlesex, just yards from the runways of Heathrow Airport.

That is all about to change. Tucked away in today's "Guardian", the ONLY paper and this, the ONLY UK political party website to report on the story, was the extraordinary news that the TNT distribution and warehousing group has been given the contract to store the nation's top secrets. Whitehall has abandoned the task of guarding the nation's sensitive papers and has handed them over to a distribution group owned by a man who controls a significant amount of the British, European and global media outlets! TNT isnt just any ordinary distribution and warehousing company. TNT is part of Rupert Murdoch's global empire which as we stated on several occasions before is an "offshore" entity and has managed to avoid paying any corporation tax to the Exchequer for years.

Would any sane Government freely give up its historically and possibly sensitive military and other questionable secrets to the man who not only owns the warehouses but the likes of SkyTV, the "Sun", "News of the World", The London "Times" and the Harper Collins book publishing group?
Questions about security, access, permissions and conflicts of interest have neither been asked or answered. It really is a case of allowing the fox to look after the chickens and someone must be called to account for this decision.

The story was quietly eased out by Lewis Moonie, the Junior Defence Minister. Here is what Dr.Moonie, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence said in a written answer and which is publicly available through the Parliamentary document called "Hansard".

"The Ministry of Defence has decided to appoint TNT Express Services with ProLogis Ltd. as the preferred bidder for the Hayes PPP Project. Subject to negotiations, TNT will be responsible for the provision of records management and archiving services to the Ministry of Defence and a number of other Government organisations for a 25-year period. ProLogis will become the owners of the Ministry site at Bourne Avenue, Hayes, Middlesex and will be responsible for its redevelopment. Within two years, TNT intends to relocate the records service to new facilities in the midlands."

One has to ask what other devious little scams the Blair administration will sneak through while all eyes are on Iraq.