Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Golden Arrow Public Affairs: Instalment 1

In the previous THREAD, William Norton asks the following question about Labour lobbying firm, Golden Arrow...
Aren't Golden Arrow the transport consultancy which employs David Jamieson,
who was a transport minister until May 2005?

Yes, William. Indeed they are. And it seems as if he is their main selling point. A reader, who is Head of Public Affairs for a major company, has contacted me with the following information...
We asked Golden Arrow to come to us and pitch for public affairs work,
promoting [deleted]... What they gave us was a talk on how important David Jamieson was and is, and we were basically left with the impression that we would be financing his expense account as he wined and dined ministers on our behalf. Very little accountability, few deliverables, except close personal contacts. Their formal
proposal was in style and substance a GCSE project, right down to the wallet it came in. There were no proposals to contact the opposition parties or senior civil servants as part of the strategy, it was completely one sided, and in their words - a bit dodgy.
This is the very same David Jamieson that refused to abide by the Ministerial code and submit his employment by Golden Arrow to be vetted by the Cabinet Secretary. David Blunkett made that mistake once. More later.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're onto something here Iain.

Keep digging.

Anonymous said...

Well done Iain. It stinks.

I will watch this space.

Anonymous said...

Also worth looking at Sovereign Strategy. They are a Labour funder run by a former MEP who ripped off his shareholders. They haven't signed up to the lobbyists code and have a number of 'interesting' people on their books. Lady Olga was wheeled out to the media recently to defend trident renewal - she's on their books and works for several of their nuclear clients.

Anonymous said...

Hasn't this been in Private Eye already...? Sovereign Strategy has for definite. Not saying you shouldn't air it though!

Anonymous said...

"DEREK Jamieson"?

"Do they mean me?"

Wrong DJ, Iain!

Anonymous said...

This was on the front page of the Sunday Times. They wrote all of this.

I thought Blogs were meant to "break the news"

Iain Dale said...

Anonymous Labour Sock puppet, er no, they didn't print this at all.

And no, 'breaking news' is not what blogs are primarily about.

Anonymous said...

Im neither sock puppet nor Labour thanks Iain. Im actually a Lib Dem...

I apologise if I seemed rude. The ST did cover this quite a bit but then again no reason why you shouldnt.

I think the "breaking news" quip is more a gripe of mine when people like Guido think that they have such a power over the political agenda, which I think is arguable/wrong.

But keep up your good work.

Iain Dale said...

Yes, the ST broke the story. Since then I have been collecting info which I am formulating into a further piece. As I had this email this morning I thought I'd put it up. There is a lot more to come, so much that i may actually make it into a short piece for 18 Doughty Street accompanying a piece on the blog.

Anonymous said...

There certainly is a LOT on the issue.

I think most people in Public Affairs would think that these jokers are just that, jokers.

Anonymous said...

Another interesting fact: Jamieson stood down from the Commons at the May 2005 election but somehow the Dept for Transport paid him quasi-redundancy compensation for loss of ministerial office. See the doc at the end of this link:

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/news/individual_blog.php?post_id=495

Iain Dale said...

Caz, please forgive me for deleting your comment. You confirmed some information I had, and will post it later on the site.

Anonymous said...

You are forgiven!