Whistleblowers: we need the protection of public interest defence

Former employees of GCHQ, the NSA, FBI and US State Department told a briefing at the FPA that both the Blair government in the UK and Obama administration in the USA had talked about protection in law for whistleblowers, but nothing had yet been agreed. The whistleblowers were brought to London by ExposeFacts, a new Washington based campaign aimed at providing better protection for whistleblowers and to protect journalism from surveillance.Coleen Rowley, a former FBI lawyer, said the 9/11 attacks might well have been prevented had national agencies shared information with each other and - crucially - with the public. It was simply not true to think that secrecy provided protection; the exact opposite was true. Kirk Wiebe, who worked at the NSA for 36 years, said the NSA had been acting illegally for 60% of its existence; mass surveillance was the most insidious threat to global democracy. It was Goebbels who had said " If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"; and we all know how that ended.

It's time to celebrate a great year! So come and join your colleagues for some Christmas cheer!

Wednesday December 10 at the O Bar in Soho

  Human Rights in Bahrain: “we must learn from our mistakes”

 The recently appointed Ombudsman for the Ministry of Interior in Bahrain told an FPA     briefing that his country had to be transparent, address the issue of human rights inside prisons, and learn from past mistakes. Nawaf Al Moawda said they were taking advice from, among others, the UK’s Independent Police Complaints Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons.  The main challenge they faced in Bahrain was to build public confidence; the number of complaints was rising, which he felt showed that such confidence was growing. Mr Al Moawda, who is also authorised to visit prisons “to ascertain the legality of procedures and that inmates, prisoners and detainees were not subjected to torture or inhuman or derogatory treatment”, said he had welcomed Amnesty International to Bahrain, and was now awaiting their report. A recent case of a prisoner being beaten to death had resulted in the arrest and charging of a police officer. He said his staff had now grown to a team of fifty, and he was not aware of any similar system being adopted in any other Arab country.

               Nigerian Opposition briefs the FPA 

'President Goodluck Jonathan is exploiting Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria for political ends' – Opposition spokesman

Nigeria’s ruling party wants to profit from Boko Haram, according to the chief spokesman for the All Progressives Congress (APC), which is aiming to win the general election in Nigeria on February 14^th next year. 

Lai Mohammed told FPA members that the longer the insurgency goes on, the easier it will be for the Government to suspend the elections in affected areas, disenfranchising about 5 million supporters of the APC.  

The stage was set for a major political upset - but that depended on the election being free and fair. Mr Mohammed said a request has already been made for EU observers to monitor the poll. He said the APC wanted to revamp the Nigerian economy; the top issue was unemployment and jobs, followed by corruption and then security. Poverty, driven by endemic corruption, and not religion was at the heart of Nigeria’s current problems. A future APC Government would negotiate Boko Haram out of existence as a prudent and focused Government; the alternative was continuing corruption, poor governance and poverty.

An evening with investigative journalist, Nick Davies. 

A lively and fascinating evening on October 1 as Nick Davies shared the gripping story of the six year investigation which would eventually unearth the endemic culture of criminality and corruption that existed inside Rupert Murdoch’s News International. 
His talk elicited lively questions and robust discussion about the future of journalism and revealed a widespread enthusiasm from correspondents representing myriad nations to forge new ways to maintain great investigative traditions and reporting.


Davies' book, 'Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch' draws on exclusive interviews with private investigators, journalists, police officers and Murdoch executives and is a not-to-be-missed dissection of the way politics, police and media colluded to abuse their powers in 21st century Britain.


Davies' spoke about his journalistic methods, the ethical conundrums he and The Guardian faced as they took on the world's most powerful media mogul, the continuing need for well resourced, incisive investigative work - and admitted a couple of regrets, including the shock closure of News of the World and the loss of so many reporting jobs.

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SCOTLAND: The Gap Narrows.

"In reality the SNP is a narrow nationalist party" – Rory Stewart MP

The MP for Penrith & the Border, Rory Stewart, told FPA members that though the SNP tried to present itself as progressive, it was a typical nationalist party. Its message: we Scots are different, we are better than the English, and our problems will be solved if only we can get rid of these people. He said the debate about Scotland was really about identity; do you think you are Scottish and British, or just Scottish? Rory Stewart said he had assumed that his time as an MP would be dominated by what was the biggest question in British politics for generations, but actually nobody either listened to or reported his speeches in the House of Commons; it had been a really sad revelation of something very wrong in British politics. Scottish separation would be a humiliation for the English; for ten years Britain would be turned in on itself and all its political energy would be wasted at a time when we should be looking outwards to the world. The armed forces would have to be cut and there would be economic uncertainty. Rory Stewart said it was naïve and complacent of the English to think that the end of the Union was not relevant to them.

“Better Together has been hopeless” – Peter Kellner, President of YouGov

Peter Kellner said it had looked so arrogant for Better Together to say to the nationalists, “You can’t have the pound, you won’t be able to stay in the EU”;  the tone should have been much more understanding, and present a much smaller target to Alex Salmond. Alex Salmond was without question the shrewdest politician client YouGov had ever had (he had been a client in the past); he was Britain’s most skilful political campaigner. He had successfully generated his own fear factor about the NHS in response to the fears generated by Better Together, and the Yes campaign had simply been much more effective and visible. Peter Kellner said only a small number of ‘Don’t knows’ would actually vote in the referendum; the latest YouGov poll would be out at 10 pm tonight and he was not in a position to talk about it. A Yes vote might force David Cameron from office, and it would be bad also for Ed Miliband; it was after all Labour voters who had moved over to the nationalist camp. He said there would be no exit polls on the 18^th as they were too expensive and very complex to carry out reliably. The result of the referendum should be known by breakfast time on September the 19^th.

FPA Vice President, Jurgen Kronig and YouGov President, Peter Kellner

SOCIAL EVENING OCTOBER 1,  2014

Award-winning Guardian investigative journalist, Nick Davies

NICK DAVIES AT THE FPA

Join your FPA colleagues at the Polish Club on October 1 to hear award-winning investigative journalist, Nick Davies, talk about his explosive new book, 'Hack Attack: How the truth caught up with Rupert Murdoch'.


The  book has been long-listed for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction and George Clooney is considering turning it into a film.


Stay for a drinks and a chat afterwards or enjoy dinner at the Club's restaurant.

To RSVP and book, please click Nick Davies talk

What will happen if Scotland votes YES, and what will happen if Scotland votes NO?

It was another full house at the FPA on September 5 for a detailed briefing on the Scottish referendum.

Professor Robert Hazell, Director of the Constitution Unit in the School of Public Policy at University College London told FPA members that - if the vote was a YES for an independent Scotland – his guess was that independence wouldn’t come until April 2017 at the earliest, about the same time as the in/out referendum on the EU promised by the Prime Minister in the event of a Conservative Government being formed after the General Election next year. He predicted that giving effect to Scottish independence would be the main preoccupation of the UK Government for the next three to five years, and suggested that a second referendum might be needed when the actual terms of independence were known. While a YES vote would be a severe blow to Britain’s international prestige, he didn’t think there would be any tangible effects; we would keep our seat on the UN Security Council and would remain one of the larger states in the EU.

 Professor Charlie Jeffery, Director of ESRC Future of UK and Scotland programme and Professor of Politics at the University of Edinburgh spoke about the implications of a NO vote, which in his view would represent a failure to persuade the Scots to vote yes, rather than a positive endorsement of the Union. All polling showed that the Scots did not feel they had an influence on UK politics at the UK level. After a No vote, there might well be pressure for a constitutional convention for the United Kingdom, and any debate could easily get bogged down and last for ages. It was possible to imagine a scenario where Scotland voted NO, but the SNP won the Scottish elections in 2016. Imagine a majority of voters in England then voted to leave the EU, but a majority in Scotland voted to stay; then what?

Professor Hazell described it as a neverendum:  the question of independence will still be with us in a hundred years if Scotland is still part of the UK, and that was fine and healthy.

“The NATO summit is a credibility summit, a real test of Europe’s commitment and will” – Dr Robin NIblett, Director, Chatham House

Robin Niblett told a briefing organised with the FPA at Chatham House that the forthcoming NATO summit in Wales was critical. In confronting Russia over Ukraine, Europe had to be in the lead; NATO ultimately was about protecting the rule of law and a free press, in other words "real democracy" - and President Putin was antithetical to both. 

Xenia Wickett, Project Director for the US Programme at Chatham House emphasised the importance of public diplomacy; NATO needed to be much better at fighting the propaganda war. It needed the support of the public, it needed quicker decision making, more effective joint planning and good, bespoke partnerships around the world. 

Both speakers agreed there would be no action plan laid out at the Summit for current conflicts in the Middle East. However they predicted a strong final statement about Ukraine, but President Putin needed to be given a way out without being humiliated and potentially, a commitment that Ukraine not join NATO.

More than 60 British and international journalists attended the briefing, chaired by FPA President, Paola Totaro.

Nothing has been achieved since the 90s to tackle climate change – Dieter Helm

The Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford Dieter Helm told FPA members there was no reason to expect any more decisive action on climate change at the UN conference in Paris next year.

Europe had exported CO2 emissions to China in the past few years by cutting manufacturing; globally, nothing had changed. Meanwhile, £100 billion was being invested across Europe in wind farms, which – along with solar panels – made precisely zero difference. Europe should invest just some of that money in research, a “European MIT”, and there were reasons for hope: solar energy could make a massive difference in the future as experts widened the light spectrum and found materials other than panels to apply solar energy. However, said Professor Helm, demand would not fall; energy would just be cheaper. Thanks to shale gas extraction or “fracking” the price of American gas was a quarter of that in Europe. For most of his career nobody had been much interested in energy as there had been massive excess supply; now, everybody cared. We didn’t have security of supply, we had less competitive and affordable energy, and emissions globally were still going up. The Uk was facing an energy crunch in the next 18 months and action was needed.