Friday, January 12, 2007

Brown Crony Appointed to Head Up Remploy

Yet another example of Labour cronyism today as the Government announced the appointment of Ian Russell as chairman of Remploy.

Russell was appointed by Gordon Brown to head up the Russell Commission on Youth Volunteering in May 2004. He was then appointed by Brown to fundraise for Brown's school cadet projects last February. Russell was the one who picked Mr Rod Aldridge (secret £1 million loaner to Labour) to head up Gordon Brown's new charity on Youth Volunteering. He was rewarded with an honour earlier this month in the ‘non-political’ New Years Honours List. Although he is not a public donor, while he was Chief Executive of Scottish Power (April 2001 to February 2006), Scottish Power gave away nearly £40,000 to the Labour Party.

With the Labour Party your reward rarely comes in heaven, it comes in being appointed to countless quangos and given honours. Nice work if you can get it...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Iain, on the subject of Brown etc, I am told that Andrew Rawnsley indicated that, once Blair was out of office, he would reveal the sources behind his book Servants of the People. Do you know of this?

Anonymous said...

Thought Remploy was a carpet firm, not a quango ? Or am I thinking of another thing altogether ?

Anonymous said...

Iain, face facts. The Tories are deluded as ever. The Shadow Cabinet is still, one year on, stuffed full of 'who isn't who' types and weasely non-entities. The party may be high in the polls of people who care and have been asked but otherwise the man in the street couldn't give a toss.

Natural party of government? Yeah, right.

Anonymous said...

Probably just setting himself up with a few allies in readiness of his new future (short lived I might add) position as PM.

No different than blurt the bliar.

Not long know Iain.

Old BE said...

Having friends in the Labour Party does seem to be a boost to one's career!

Anonymous said...

This is 'dog bites man' stuff surely ?

Anonymous said...

Sorry Iain. This is unjustified mischief. Remploy are not a quango. They are a campaigning and effective organisation in helping disabled people into jobs. Are they supposed to select people as champions who (a) have no track record or (b) are in purdah vis a vis their main partners. Who would Iain Dale have pushed for this post? In what way(s) are they better than Remploy's choice? Do you want everyone who ever knew Gordon or any other leading light of any political party or heaven-forfend agreed with one or two of their ideas immediately have to go unemployed? To be replaced by people who have never taken part in society? Ridiculous!

Anonymous said...

And the Tories never ever placed supportive people in quangos when they were in power, of course

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
"And the Tories never ever placed supportive people in quangos when they were in power, of course"

No doubt they did but they're not the ones in the firing line at the minute. People just want a change. I guess it's the political cycle of life.

Can you blame anyone for highlighting every and any issue concerning labour?

Time for a tory government me thinks.

Although I hope they don't fuck up as much as Nu-lab and as often as they have.

Anonymous said...

Iain: Remploy are NDPB which (sorry) I didn't know when I posted. Not quango but guaranteed funding. They have a .co.uk not .org or .gov address. But the challenge remains:

- Who would you put in?
- Would you ban everyone who ever smiled at a politician from all serious jobs?

Anonymous said...

My thoughts to this smacks of the sort of wrong headed thining that lay behind the Standards board. Of course people will be prejudiced in favour of those they know understamnd and trust. People of their own back ground and so on .


um Isn`t their a quango that is supposed to stop all that ?

Anonymous said...

Amongst other things, Remploy manufacture Biohaz body bags, which are resistant to chemical, biological and radiological or nuclear exposure. The Home Office placed an order for a large number of these bags last year. The contract doesn't appear to have been awarded yet. It will be interesting to see which company wins it.

Remploy

Anonymous said...

It doesn't have the same ring about it as Tony crony. The King isn't even dead yet, and the band are playing Long Live the King.