Newsweek Scotland: trowel at the ready

Surprised by the cynical hypocrisy of London City University's Professor Ivor Gabor who was involved in the 'British Establishment' plot to purge the Unesco Wales and Unesco Scotland committees for being 'too Catalan' in May 2009 in the secret 'UK National Commission for Unesco' Ltd meeting attended by Mr Gabor and Whitehall civil servants in a London lawyer's offices. Minutes were suppressed and we here in Scotland only got hold of them after 12 months of persistent FOI requests revealed that a copy sent to a junior civil servant in Scottish Government had been 'misfiled'. As this was one of the biggest cultural scandals since vandals in London destroyed The Blue Peter Garden prompting outrage by Percy Thrower I'll post them up here!

UK National Commission for Unesco 10th Board of Directors Meeting

Date and Time:

Thursday 28th May 2009; Sandwich Lunch 13.00 - 13.30 / Meeting 13.30 - 17.30

Meeting Venue:

Bircham Dyson Bell LLP, 50 Broadway, London SW1H 0BL 5JJ

ATTENDEES

Board of Directors

Alec Boksenberg – Chair Sue Davies – Company Secretary John Morgan Tim Craddock Ivor Gaber Timothy Mason Michael Scott

Apologies: Peter Lavender, Joanne Orr, Tim Williams, Richard Ennals.

Observers

Peter Landymore – UK Permanent Delegation to UNESCO (DFID) Michael Helston – Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Yasmin Hussein – Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) Bridget Brody – Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)

Apologies: John Aslen – Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) Daniel Kleinberg – Scottish Government

Secretariat in attendance

Alba de Souza

In attendance for agenda item 7

Penny Chapman, Ben Brice − Bircham Dyson Bell LLP

PROCEEDINGS:



Penny Chapman and Ben Brice from BDB joined the meeting.

7. 7.1

7.2

7.2.1

GOVERNANCE MATTERS Scotland Committee While this had not been on the original agenda, SMD conveyed an urgent request from Joanne Orr to confirm the powers of the Chair of the Scotland Committee to discipline a member of the Scotland Committee. The Board gave its encouragement and support to the Chair of the Scotland Committee to use the UKNC’s conferred constitutional powers to take the necessary action in the case of the individual concerned.

Action: JO to take the necessary action to discipline a member of the Scotland Committee.

Wales Committee

AB introduced the receipt of the letter from Michael Scott dated 7 May that had been circulated to members prior to the meeting. The following three issues were highlighted:

a. the stated appointment of Elizabeth Hughes (previously Vice-Chair) to Executive Director of the Wales Committee, effected through MS’s organisation Glyndwr University but funded by the Welsh Assembly Government out of the Committee’s annual budget, without the approval of the Board;

b. the advanced moves by the Wales Committee to set up an UNESCO Centre in Wales modelled on that found in Catalonia, without the knowledge of the Board;

c.the stated resolve to withhold financial responsibility for the Wales Committee from the UKNC, counter to the UKNC’s legal requirements. AB added that in the letter MS had acknowledged that “there are a number of underlying issues that you will wish to debate”. AB commented that as the Board was aware, there had indeed been long-standing discussion, over many years, with the Wales Committee about its legal requirements within the UKNC. Recently it had seemed that some progress towards these requirements had been made. The apparent breaches of the authority delegated to the Wales Committee under the UKNC’s Articles of Association now indicated in this letter, however, had come as a surprise. AB then called the Board to consider the issues before it. Addressing MS, he stated that in light of the clear conflict of interest, the Board required that MS leave for this part of the meeting. MS said that before he went out he wanted to correct some information: a. the Committee had been frustrated by the fact that it had not had any dedicated

secretarial help thus far; b. Glyndwr University had made a mistake in the title of the job – it was not, as stated in the

letter to AB, that of Executive Director to the Wales Committee, but in fact a short-term appointment as a project manager, made by Glyndwr University and not the Wales Committee or the Welsh Assembly Government; it had nothing to do with the Board;

c.the Wales Committee had done its own critical evaluation and had decided to be more active in its project work than the UKNC’s Strategy promotes; as part of this it was decided that the Wales Committee set up an UNESCO Centre that would work within the broad framework of UNESCO, on similar lines as in Catalonia in Spain;

d. the Wales Committee did not have its own discretionary budget; its funds were from the Welsh Assembly Government for activities only approved jointly with the Wales Committee;

e. YH could set up a meeting to discuss the above matters more fully as a Welsh Assembly Government representative on the Wales Committee.

He finished by saying that that he apologised for the misinformation in his letter about the title of the post, and that the matters raised were minor and he did not want it all made a major issue. He then left the room.

JO

4

Item

Gabor will no doubt be able to confirm that 'The British Establishment' clique then goes into Stalinist purge mode .... the Welsh Director Mike Scott (a respected university principal who has been asked to leave the room) resigns that evening according to the secret minute and the Welsh Unesco committee is suspended and replaced with pliant stooges including a much-criticised former head of the General Teaching Council in Wales which was subsequently abolished ... the Scot referred to (which turned out to be me even though I have never met these people and there was no basis whatsoever for their action against me) is then physically prevented from entering Victoria Quay the following Monday after presenting a valid letter of invitation and credentials as a civil society member of the Unesco Scotland advisory committee set up under Nolan Principles and which had its own Scottish Cabinet Guidelines issued in 2006 by the previous Labour/Lib Dem coalition in Scotland. The UK DfID Ambassador to Unesco (Peter Landymore) who is also recorded pulling the strings at the UKNC for Unesco meeting in London where no Scots were represented (I have never met him either) is then subsequently named in coverage in both The Telegraph and The Daily Mail of employment and race discrimination cases that are brought in two jursidictions - Paris and London - by staff at the UK DEL to Unesco (one of whom was German and who complained of 'The Old Boys Club' and who alleged he had been called 'a Nazi' by one of the other 'Brits' in the Paris Embassy who survived the subsequent round of redundancies targetting the whistleblower).

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360131/Foreign-diplomat-suing-government-sacked-German.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8024961/Millions-spent-to-allow-ambassador-to-live-in-luxury-in-Paris.html

Copy of the Terms of Reference issued by the Scottish Cabinet in 2006 (ie the Labour Lib Dem Coalition) which a cabal in London and their British Establishment stooges sought to rescind behind closed doors after the SNP take power as they struggled to stop Wales and Scotland having the same rights of direct and indirect representation at Unesco as Quebec, Catalonia, The Flemish Nation and the Swiss cantons .... ‎" PURPOSES OF THE SCOTLAND COMMITTEE FOR UNESCO (as agreed by the Labour/Lib Dem Scottish Cabinet in 2006 and supplied to members of the Scotland Committee who were appointed under Nolan Rules after a public advertisement)



The purposes of the Scotland Committee for UNESCO will be:



(i) to participate, directly and as part of the UK, in UNESCO programmes;



(ii) to reach out to Scottish civil society to enable as many people as possible in Scotland to understand more about UNESCO and to participate in its programmes;



(iii) to influence Scottish and UK policy-making on UNESCO in line with civil society priorities."



Note that at no point is there any reference to UK National Commission for Unesco .... and it was completely inappropriate for Joanne Orr to unilaterally take it upon herself to delete the words 'participate, directly and as part of the UK' in a report she made to a new SNP Minister which was tabled retrospectively for our committee to rubber-stamp after she had sent it to Ministers and materially change the words in (i) to 'to participate as part of the UK National Commission in Unesco programmes' ... quite outrageous ... and absolutely brazen .....



A Scottish Government civil servant Daniel Kleinberg tried to brush this off as a 'semantic' change after I objected and drew attention to the Scottish Cabinet guideline .... and I was then accused of being 'disruptive' .... expulsion by UKNC in London (by people I have never met) followed in a secret agenda item that when it came to light 12 months later also confirmed that Whitehall then moved to purge Unesco Wales who were trying to develop a 'Catalan-model' of Welsh representation in Unesco ...



SNP ministers were being deliberately misled upon taking office about what the previous Labour/Lib Dem administration had agreed ..... and were not being told that they were effectively as a new SNP administration handing back power not just to London but to the private company registered in England of which Joanne Orr (CEO of Museums and Galleries Scotland and who is English) was the sole Scottish director .... and which UK DfID's own auditors we now know believed should never have been given so much power even in England and Wales .....



quite astonishing .... and deeply dishonest ....

Percy Thrower commenting on vandals in London: 'People who do this sort of thing must be mentally ill, Janet' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuZIFvtx228

" The Department for International Development (DfID) has been paying half a million pounds a year for a mission which represents British interests at UNESCO, the United Nations body best known for protecting world heritage sites.

It funds the office even though the UK already has a full-scale embassy in Paris, which is run separately and paid for by the Foreign Office.

Documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph reveal that up until this year, the biggest single cost within DfID's Paris operation was a £200,000-a-year package for its ambassador.

The deal included £70,000 a year spent renting a flat in one of Paris's most expensive neighbourhoods, use of a chauffeur-driven BMW and a further £25,000 for fees at one of Britain's most expensive boarding schools."

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Introducting Rt Hon Brian Wilson ..... 'Brian is a board member of Keltick Football Club'? https://vimeo.com/32731064

Statement on remote access to the PuffInn canteen and toilet facilities on St Kilda from Ministry of Defence contractor Qinetic:



https://www.kilda.org.uk/puffinnstatement.htm

Curiously too for an organisation that purports to support Press Freedom UK National Commission for Unesco doesn't publish its minutes and doesn't like people who ask questions in meetings .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJZ1YtWiFEE

As for poor Tintin ... his boat was sunk ... and salvage of historic wrecks (another of Unesco's area of interest) is currently a matter for English Heritage and Historic Scotland (who have recently carried out a consultation). Currently the underwater archaeology contract for the whole UK lies with the English company whose CEO chaired the DCMS Committee that knocked Arbroath Abbey and St Andrews off the UK 'Tentative List' for Unesco World Heritage status along with Glasgow School of Art and Mackintosh's Hill House in Helensburgh. She also participated in the UKNC meeting in London that purged Unesco Scotland and Wales committees of dissent.



There is of course experitise in underwater mapping of wrecks in Scotland at the universities of St Andrews and Dundee and at ALDUS which mapped Scapa Flow. But politics surprisingly appears to come into such areas as is evidenced by this 2008 response to an earlier Historic Scotland consultation by Wessex Archaeology:



" Question 3: Is ‘national importance’ as defined in Annex A the appropriate criterion for designating marine historic assets?



Mindful of the ways in which archaeology has been mobilised by states to support

nationalist ideologies in many contexts, we are wary of the term ‘national importance’ as a criterion for selecting sites whose survival is to be preferentially secured for the future.



On the face of it, the safeguarding of those assets that today’s state regards as of

‘national importance’ may compromise the opportunities of future generations to

understand, appreciate and benefit from the historic environment in terms that are

relevant to them (cf. para. 4.1). In discharging their duty to the future, Scottish Ministers should have regard to the brief and transient character of today’s nations relative to the many thousands of years of human activity represented in the historic environment.



We would also note that ‘national’ as a criterion of importance is rather one-dimensional, reducing the many different scales at which a site might be important to a single scale, which is prioritised over all others. In this respect, ‘national importance’ may be both deceptive and inaccurate if it subsumes the importance that may arise simultaneously at a local scale, regional scale, UK-scale, European scale or even international scale.



Nonetheless, we note that ‘national importance’ is the framework that is to continue in respect of historic assets on land, and seamlessness of approach is to be valued. There are many ways in which ‘national’ can be constructed. The approach to ‘national interest’ in Annex A of the draft SHEP relies more on transparent, testable attributes than on elusive, mystic invocations of the ‘nation’. It is a concern, however, that terms such as ‘the national interest’ and ‘national consciousness’ are presumed to be self-evident, and are not further explained. Marine Historic Environment – draft SHEP WA Response 4/8



To summarise, ‘national importance’ could be an appropriate criterion, so long as its construction and meaning is scientifically robust. It might be better still to adopt another term that is less readily tainted.



Question 4: Are the guidance and criteria for determining national importance set

out in Annex A those which should be applied? If not, what would you suggest?



The criteria in Annex A seem basically sound, though we would like to make a few

observations.



The reference to ‘national consciousness’ in paragraph 7.f has been highlighted above as being problematic. If synonymous with ‘popular awareness’ it is probably too transient and prone to media fashion to provide a suitable basis for long-term protection.



Otherwise, it suggests some kind of transcendent spirit to be divined by a few on behalf of the many, and is unlikely to lend itself to evidence-based decision-making. However defined, it is worth recalling that one of the greatest strengths of archaeology is its ability to challenge people’s preconceptions about the past; it would be a shame to privilege sites which accord with ‘national consciousness’ over those that confront it.



The acknowledgment in paragraph 2 of Annex A that some wrecks may be important whilst having but a transitory association with Scotland is obviously a key issue for the marine historic environment. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be reflected in the discussion of national importance in paragraphs 5-7. It may be advisable to elaborate on paragraph 7.c. to make it explicit that ‘the wider historic environment’ encompasses these international connections.



Alternatively, we believe that it would be worthwhile to develop a ‘coastal state’ criterion. Such a criterion would reflect Scotland’s global responsibilities for safeguarding important wrecks in its water on behalf of all humanity, even if the wrecks are not important to Scotland. "



(Antony Firth Head of Coastal and Marine Projects Wessex Archaeology 30 May 2008 ) (NB: Sue Davies, CEO of Wessex Archaeology is a Director of UKNC for Unesco)

https://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/wessex_archaeology-consultation-response.pdf

Part of my very real frustration about London control of Scotland's role in Unesco is that there is so much potential - some of it recognised by Alex Salmond on his visit to China - in areas such as digital mapping of Unesco World Heritage sites and wrecks; but the dead-hand of Whitehall which has their own wee agenda risks killing this off:



https://www.wrecksight.com/Video.html

I also don't like UKNC's Chinese-style purges of those educated in Scotland and Wales who are better placed I suggest to advise on such matters than plonkers from England

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