Even the patience of a Blairing Murdoch Times employee is tested when faced with the undeniable evidence of Blair’s sleazy regime that has brought the Crossrail threat to the East End.


Today’s Times newspaper carries a financial comment piece written by the paper’s Patience Wheatcroft who is the latest commentator to admit that Crossrail chairman Adrian Montague is in essence involved in undeniable undemocratic greedy acquisition of public resources.


Objections to Adrian Montague being given so much Blair-Brown-facilities to make personal gain at the expense of the public are rising. They may not be rising as fast as they ought. But they are. And as I have been saying for 25 months now, the crassness at the heart of the Crossrail adventure must be recognised and the flawed waster of public cash must be scrapped. Otherwise the public purse be robbed of another £20billion by the sharks that are pushing for the project and hyping it interminably.


Here is the full PATIENCE WHEATCROFT article KHOODEELAAR online is publishing here courtesy of Times online Friday 17 February 2006

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It's all so cosy inside Tony's teepee
PATIENCE WHEATCROFT
The Government’s relationship with a select group of businessmen is less than healthy


FALSE MODESTY has never troubled Lord Birt. His confidence in his own abilities has proved enough to convince others, most notably the Prime Minister, that he can think great thoughts. Those who are disquieted by the former BBC Director-General’s role in the Government can at least take comfort that not even Tony Blair is prepared to pay him for being his strategy adviser. Were there a decent salary attached to the task of “blue-skies thinking”, then there might be a queue of contenders to oust Lord Birt from his Downing Street patch.
Now, though, it seems that Mr Blair’s faith in his chum goes beyond shared day dreams. Suggestions that he would have been happy to see Lord Birt installed as chairman of Urenco, a uranium producer part-owned by the Government, have caused ructions in Whitehall. The post carries a £300,000 salary and could yield a QinetiQ-style multimillion bonus should plans to float the business on the stock market succeed. Yet Lord Birt’s experience of running a large commercial company is as limited as his knowledge of the nuclear industry is likely to be.
Loyalty is a quality to be admired, as Gordon Brown no doubt regularly remarks to his neighbour. But when loyalty becomes embroiled in commerce it begins to look like dangerous croneyism. Luckily for those of us who feel safer keeping blue-skies thinking well away from uranium, Lord Birt’s appointment was vetoed and Urenco has a new chairman who knows about chemicals.
Yet while Lord Birt’s appointment may have been thwarted, another of Labour’s favourite businessmen is involved in what looks a particularly cosy deal. It emerged this week that Sir Adrian Montague, backed by the mighty Goldman Sachs investment bank, was in the process of negotiating the takeover of the Channel Tunnel rail link and part ownership of Eurostar. Now it was not generally known that London & Continental Railways, the company involved, was thinking about selling, but Sir Adrian was better placed than most to learn of this since he was instrumental in devising the rescue package that delivered control to the Government in 1998.
He has not come to the attention of the public as Lord Birt did because his name is synonymous with PFI rather than BBC. The former, however, is dearer to the heart of this administration than the latter. The Private Finance Initiative was the term devised for a scheme that enables the Government to shower the country with new roads, schools and hospitals and leave future generations to pick up the bill.
As leader of the Treasury’s PFI taskforce, Sir Adrian devised any number of these “enjoy now, pay later” projects. His CV was augmented with a couple of years as deputy chairman of Network Rail, a spell as chairman of the organisation that still bangs the drum for the Crossrail project and the chairmanship of British Energy.
In order to stop the Channel Tunnel rail link project coming to a halt, the Government had to put in place some generous guarantees. In line with its usual dubious accounting practices, these do not feature on Mr Brown’s books at the moment, but one day a tougher regime might insist on a more transparent approach. If a way could be found to avoid that eventuality, perhaps through a sale to a sensitive bidder, then no doubt the Treasury would be relieved. And if the terms were such that Sir Adrian were eventually to make a handsome profit on the deal, then the administration that was happy to see the QinetiQ chairman’s fortune swell by £26 million on this month’s flotation would hardly begrudge him that, would it?
Such generosity of spirit goes beyond finances. This Government is as keen as any to reward those who have been helpful. Last month a senior adviser on education had to step down after letting slip what had anyhow become blindingly obvious: donating to city academies was tantamount to buying into the honours system. Contribute to five academies, he explained to an undercover reporter, and a peerage was in the bag.
There is nothing revolutionary in the effective sale of honours, but the Blair administration has gone so far in this croneyism that the House of Lords Appointments Commission has decided it is crossing the line of decency. It has been sitting on the latest list of Blair peerages for almost four months. That so many of the names had been heavy donors to the Labour Party and had made it on to the list despite what unbiased eyes might see as big blemishes on their records upset stronger members of the committee.
Last week one of the individuals with a question mark against his name decided that he would withdraw. Barry Townsley may have been a generous man but there are some investors in a scandal-ridden company who do not think highly of him. His stockbroking firm brought the business to market and helped them to lose a lot of money. Some embarrassing legal actions are likely to follow.
The list may now speed through, although there will still be objections if Sir David Garrard is elevated to the ermine. Sir David has donated to city academies but that is not enough to appease those whose pension rights have been hit because of the collapse of the Allders retail business, which was ultimately owned by Sir David’s company. They have an altogether different title in mind for him.
The Blair Government’s tendency to see only the good in people might be endearing were it not restricted to such a small and special band. The Big Tent has turned out to be more of teepee for the chosen few."