[common purpose] meanwhile, in america

Head honcho UK - "leading" without our authority


Here we go again [Hat Tip Cassandra]:

The latest in a series of new, low-profile efforts to coordinate the unusually focused progressive coalition backing the White House’s goals is a quiet weekly meeting run by a new group called the Common Purpose Project.

The Common Purpose meeting every Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol Hilton brings together the top officials from a range of left-leaning organizations, from labor groups like Change to Win to activists like MoveOn.org, all in support of the White House’s agenda. The group has an overlapping membership with a daily 8:45 a.m. call run by the Center for American Progress’ and Media Matters’ political arms; with the new field-oriented coalition Unity ‘09; and with the groups that allied to back the budget as the Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now.

Unlike those other groups, however, the Common Purpose meeting has involved a White House official, communications director Ellen Moran, two sources familiar with the meeting said. It’s aimed, said one, at “providing a way for the White House to manage its relationships with some of these independent groups.”

The group’s founder, political consultant and former Gephardt aide Erik Smith, described it in general terms after others had confirmed its existence. (Emphasis added.)

However, Jane Hamsher let slip who is really behind Common Purpose, calling it “one of the many groups Rahm Emanuel has set up to coordinate messaging among liberal interest groups”:

There are a variety of vehicles through which this is done — the 8:45 am call, Unity 09, Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America — and they’ve been extremely successful. When the banks told the White House they wouldn’t cooperate with the PPIP plan unless they got their bonuses, and the administration made the decision to “ratchet down their rhetoric,” the call went out to the liberal interest groups to stay silent too…and silent they remain.

***

There’s a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don’t want to buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having their funding slashed. Someone picks up a phone, calls a big donor, and the next thing you know…the money is gone. It’s already happened. Because that’s the way Rahm plays.

Of course, the names are different, the backers different but the purpose "common".

[Addition at 20:22: Please do follow the links because below the links are the comments and in many of the comments is a wealth of added information ... plus you can see the concern of so many people ...]

Here is the European model explained:

1. From Ian Parker-Joseph - so many articles here [click this line]

2. Tavistock and Common Purpose

With its purposes now subsumed into Common Purpose, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London was funded into existence in 1946 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

One of the Tavistock founders, Dr. John Rawlings Rees, who also became co-founder of the World Federation for Mental Health, talked of infiltrating all professions and areas of society:

‘Public life, politics and industry should all ... be within our sphere of influence ... If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity!

We must aim to make it permeate every educational activity in our national life ... We have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine.’

Common Purpose comes into its own in the post-democracy phase of the EU from 2012.

3. Common Purpose first noted and wondered about - read the comments section

4. Common Purpose training methods [also - Groupthink]

5. Service transformation and Common Purpose

6. Psychological profile of a Common Purpose graduate and Julia Middleton's famous Jerk comment

7. From Sonus, on who Common Purpose actually are:

One

Two

Three

[Note: it is Higham's red highlighting below]

So what organisation, among many, works according to Chatham House rules, has advised the UK Government, well nulab, since they were elected, and which is openly working towards a “post democratic” organised society?

Common Purpose!, and who was involved with Common Purpose at its inception? Geoff Mulgan. And which organisation did he represent at that point? Demos!

Who, or what was/is Demos? Demos is a creation of the Fabian Society, and Mulgan, via Demos was special advisor to T Blair. Yes him again, he who currently is employed by J P Morgan! (CFR represented)

And who is Mulgan? Ex LSE lecturer. And who were the original founders of LSE? The Fabian Society.

Who funded Demos, and Common Purpose? The Office of Deputy Prime Minister, ODPM, bruiser, and secretary shagger, Prescott. The ODPM also set up Regional Assemblies in line with EU prescribed geographical organisation structures, their links with local business that reek of moral hazard, and the local slush funds ermm, Regional Development Agencies, to guide finance into local projects, which once again reek of moral hazard. (Split 'em up in separate hierarchies so they can't organise resistance, then bribe 'em so they won't. Classic moves! Tried and tested.)

And all to comply with the EU, and the greater plan for the world and the new self anointed leaders.

And remember the link given previously.

It all becomes one great global organisation, consolidating power on its own terms.

And so we go full circle. Demos is now quietly advising Labour, Conservatives, and LibDems, - there is no difference between them, and no point in voting for them, and that is why they hate the BNP and the Libertarian party.

Mulgan wrote a book “The Invisible Hand Remaking Charities in the 21st Century”, and recently Miliband introduced legislation into the house that would allow charities to become politically active. There are 170,000 charities in the UK, turning over £44B pa. Clearly a problem. Thankfully the attempt failed, but you can see the direction of pressure! .......

[Higham interrupts to insert these on fake charities [read to get a feel for our situation]:

Mark Wadsworth 1
Mark Wadsworth 2]

... Sonus continues ...The Media Standards Trust adjudicates on reports and complaints about media bias.

Look at the list of trustees. Sir David Bell (Chairman, Financial Times Group) is also Common Purpose, -( link below). Robert Peston is also Common Purpose, but he wouldn't want you to know;) The best part is that they share premises with Common Purpose, same rooms, and Common Purpose provides their IT functions.

Represented are, Anthony Salz (Executive Vice Chairman, NM Rothschild) , and Charles Manby (Goldman Sachs) , and best of all, Deputy Chair Julia Middleton (CEO, Common Purpose) .

Common Purpose have clearly got the Media Standards Trust sown up! So when you make a complaint about the BBC bias, who do you think gets to know? They compile lists. Common Purpose graduates in local authorities and other state bodies are also building lists of enquirers under the Freedom of Information Act! What an excellent way to acquire schedules of dissenters!

And Given the CP overwhelming representation, will the adjudication be impartial? Think of the banal justifications presented by the BBC in their answers!

Then look at Common Purpose details.

Common Purpose have progressed since I last looked. Notice the international banks there, Stock Exchanges, Bundesbank, Goldman Sachs, Irish Banks, Dutch Bank, AIG, National Treasury South Africa,

So we go full circle again. Goldman Sachs, (on both), AIG, Anthony Salz (Executive Vice Chairman, NM Rothschild)

This is really interesting.

There are a smattering of CFR names there too, and Bilderberg names too.

The net closes. - - - On us.

This blogsite is a mine of information.

8. Origins and connections of Common Purpose

9. Common Purpose operations in Britain:

Common Purpose’s failure to explain “what common purpose?”, only to say it is “beyond authority” and when pressed as to what that means, answers that it’s to open up leadership opportunities to those not actually in positions of authority. Again, for what common purpose? They are silent.

The new DTI website now has Regulation in the title and deals with regional administration. CP lists these, concerning all their programmes:

• develop outward-facing leadership, as people who can lead beyond their authority can produce change beyond their direct circle of control
• are highly interactive and experiential, through their real-life settings
• are committed to diversity as working with new and different groups of people delivers greater insight, problem-solving and creativity
• operate under a set of international conventions that create an environment in which real challenge can thrive
• are demanding and fun.

Set of international conventions? In an English region? Change beyond their direct circle of control?

So the investigator either becomes a conspiracy theorist and joins the dots himself or else he is left with a fragmented database, no one snippet actually proving anything but tantalizing nonetheless.

Such as Ben Shepherd’s CP recruiting drive page [read the article] showing a young man in isolation and a blurb inviting young people to join. Notice it's supported by supported by Deutsche Bank and you can check out their history. H/T Cassandra

Again, not particularly nefarious although I thought it was British money supporting CP, not Euro.

And check the Julia Middleton video op. cit.: How To Lead When you haven't any authority and her explanation of recruiting procedure [read the article]:

Participants are selected by a local Common Purpose advisory group, consisting of senior leaders in the area covered by the programme.

But leadership for what? Well, clearly for local and regional CP graduates to occupy top places in government, semi-governmental and industry instrumentalities.

But for what and with what common purpose?

That question has been much on MPs’ minds too as they’ve asked many questions in parliament [read the article].

John Trenchard mentions [read the article], for example, Phil Woolas, Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government replied to one question about the PEU or riot police:

Since the formation of the Preventing Extremism Unit in October 2006, the unit has made grants of less than £100,000 to: Common Purpose - Muslim Leadership Development Project.

Pardon?

Or what of the 4.8 MB pdf on CP in Bradford, whose Page 1 Google fragment says:

THIS WILL TRANSFORM THE TOWN OVER THE NEXT 20 YEARS. THE FACILITY WILL ... YORKSHIRE FORWARD EXISTS TO CREATE A POWERFUL AND POSITIVE EFFECT ON THE ...... Leeds Common Purpose. Board member. January 2002. Leeds Initiative ...

You can find a partial list of CP controlled organizations here [read the article] .

Indimedia says the organisation now has training programmes in every major town and city in Britain and since 1989 more than 60,000 people have been involved with 20,000 'leaders' completing one or more programmes. These are:

Leaders: Matrix and Focus
Emerging leaders: Navigator
Very young leaders: Your Turn
Leaders who need a local briefing: Profile
National leaders: 20:20

Matrix?

They themselves seem quite proud of it [read the article]:

We run a Common Purpose programme in every major city and town in the UK and in an increasing number of European cities. 12,000 leaders from all sectors and backgrounds have become Common Purpose 'graduates'.

As CP aren’t making their methods available or filing their curricula online, Indimedia believes it is to do with NLP:

NLP is a technique of using words to re-programme the body computer to accept another perception of reality - in this case the consensus agreed by the manipulators before their victims even register for the 'course'. Apparently the CIA refers to these pre-agreed 'opinions' as 'slides'.

Anyone who resists the programming is isolated and the group turned against them until they either conform or lose credibility to be a 'leader'.

Well there’s not a lot new in that – it was the basis of much of our military leadership training – the need to have all think as one.

Winston Leonard got down to it on 15 October 2007, at my site, when he cited Derek Twigg, [Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Veterans), Ministry of Defence) Hansard source] in answer to parliamentary questions:

Sums paid to Common Purpose UK in each of the last complete five financial years, inclusive of VAT, are as follows:

Amount (£)
2002-03 56,576.25
2003-04 66,716.50
2004-05 42,958.00
2005-06 58,456.27
2006-07 83,817.89

"These payments covered the cost of participation by MOD staff in Common Purpose UK's training and education programmes. Programmes of this nature help to develop leadership skills, to gain understanding about broader aspects of government and to share experience with and learn from participants from both the private and public sectors."

One moment please. CP are connected with MOD training? Winston Leonard adds that, with that in mind, consider these two links:

SWRDA who bought delisted MOD territory [read the article]:

The site is being redeveloped by the South West Regional Development Agency and English Partnerships, who purchased it for £10m. Some form of mixed commercial, retail and housing development is planned, but no details are yet concrete.

Norfolk Action Plan [read the article]:

6.2 It was noted that the Unit would be using the services of a Graduate Placement to help drive the Action Plan forward. Members welcomed the report and emphasised the need for a sound regeneration policy and for this to be high priority particularly in the light of recent closures e.g. Crane Fruehauf, Heinz Foods, RAF Coltishall and RAF Neatishead.

It was also highlighted that regeneration could not take place without partnership working across the county including District Councils. Furthermore it was important to remember that the county contained many areas of hidden deprivation.

As to what action plan, read the article. And as for English Partnerships, Wiki is sketchy:

English Partnerships (EP) is the national regeneration agency for England, performing a similar role on a national level to that fulfilled by Regional Development Agencies on a regional level. It is responsible for land acquisition and assembly and major development projects, alone or in joint partnership with private sector developers.

Do you know anything about them? I didn’t before this week.

It’s often difficult to see the forest for the trees. What we have so far is a lot of acitivity on leadership training programmes for vaguely stated purposes, the buying up of property and some connection with the security forces [along with similar moves to EU militias in Europe].

10. Common Purpose disguising themselves behind Citizen's Juries

Hat Tip: James Barlow.

These people are bad news and now they are in America. Founder? Hardly, unless you consider Weishaupt a "founder". It's Twilight's Last Gleaming, America, unless you can unblinker your eyes and make grassroots moves to keep America constitutional.



Good material on Common Purpose

UK Column
CP Exposed
Stop CP
Ken Craggs
BetweenMyths

Some of my own, based on material supplied

Common Purpose - more evidence
Common Purpose dishonesty
An oppressor by any other name
CP - the cancer spreads
OFSTED - the fish rots at the head

Common Purpose at work and play
More than corrupt
Groupthink spreads like a cancer through the UK
Is this how to run a country?
One ring to rule them all
Paradiso and the future of the internet
Demos, Common Purpose, Labour, Tories, security companies
Common Purpose - the disease spreads to the Netherlands
Common Purpose - meanwhile, in America
Groupthink - gentle art of persuasion
Common Purpose - initially to have a coffee
Common Purpose - just the facts, ma'am
Common Purpose - rhetoric of the quisling

References to Common Purpose appear in many other posts.

[meet your new leaders] a psychological profile

Sean has been digging and the blurb he found says:

I am the MP for Gateshead East and Washington West. I am PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary) to Bob Ainsworth, Armed Forces Minister:

Sharon [Hodgson] is a Common Purpose graduate and was delighted to be able to go back and contribute something to the course. She was invited to speak to the latest graduates and It was great to see so many people benefiting from the work Common Purpose does. As an international leadership programme they can really help build peoples’ confidence and develop their skills careers.

A CP grad is PPS to the Army? I'm feeling faint. Wonko puts it nicely:

The problem with Common Purpose is that the attendees are not allowed to talk about what happens on their courses and no minutes are taken at Common Purpose training courses or meetings. Attendees may have been encouraged or induced to promote Common Purpose but there will be no records to confirm this and the attendees have agreed to keep what happens a secret.

This certainly doesn’t encourage open government, transparency or accountability. How does the Ministry of Justice know that what the attendees have been taught and agreed to do in their secret meetings is in the best interests of the department or the electorate, especially when the course teaches attendees to lead beyond their authority?

The mentality of a CP graduate is what interests me and looking at Ms Hodgson, one really wonders. Possibly a nice PC lady in herself with the good of humanity and her family at heart but representing a very suspect organization nonetheless. Wolfie, who's dealt with such people even more than I have feels, in effect, that they they are limited people in themselves, high on ambition but lacking ability and prone to error.

I think events in the public private interface in Britain have borne that out. The excellent Wat Tyler puts it this way at his blog:

They spend 43% of our income, yet fail to deliver decent services. They promise prosperity, yet tax and regulate our economy into stasis. They talk up social justice, yet consign millions to welfare dependency. Enough is enough. We the peasants demand our high-spending, high-living, conflicted politicos mend their ways.

This is the sort of fine detail he gets into, should you wish to look into it. Others like DK and Mr. E do it in a more general way.

I worked for two years for the civil service in what is now HM Revenue & Customs and was that ever an eye opener. One thing for sure - they look after their own in there and I feel like a traitor ratting on them now, as I was protected more than once from "predators" from the private sphere.

There was an incident when an abrasive newbie shipping agent felt I was going slow on his company's application for exports and the truth was - I was going slow. I didn't like him or his pushy manner. You need to understand here that no boat sails without the paperwork stamped, every hour is further expense and I had that stamp in my hand.

I was duty bound to stamp it if everything was in order but there was no law about how and when I did that. The young buck saw it, said something about meeting me on the street, I offered my cheek across the counter for him to hit, he lost his nut and took a swing, sprawling across the counter.

Oh dear, I thought - I'm in trouble. My inspector hauled me in and wanted every detail, then told me to get back to the counter, adding, in parting, "Tell me if you have any more trouble." I noticed that next day the head of the company brought whisky and went to visit our inspector. He then came to me and apologized for the street-fighter and the young ASBO was never seen again.

This blog ran a profile of the mentality of the CP graduate without attaching the label CP and if you can wade through it, it's about the susceptibility of a particular type of person that departmental talent spotters latch onto.

The key mental components are PCishness, up-front work ethic but prone to the shortcut, limited real ideas of any paradigm shifting substance, susceptibility to acceptance of trite presented paradigms couched in PC friendly language, ambition and clubbability - a person strongly affected by inclusion in "the club" and viewing enemies of "the club" as her enemies too.

This last comes through strongly in Julia Middleton's infamous "jerk" remark. They really do believe they're the elite who are going to take over at local regional government level in "the emergency" they're training so hard for.

Of all the words written, of all the blogposts across the UK and NA spheres on the matter, the one which remains with me is the Scottish Arts Council. At the time "the leading figures in the Scottish Arts had been led in a "debate" which was not a debate":

After an obviously unwanted debate (chaired by Mrs. Jack McConnell, Labour Party) in which the audience clearly did not accept what they were told, the final words from Seona Reid (then Director of the SAC) conveyed the impression that some form of transaction had taken place, that "SAC was working to ensure the arts were incorporated into the range of Government policies - but arts organisations and artists needed to play their part in making this a reality".

In other words, funding had been reduced, a crisis created, in came the CP and put a deal to salvage "the arts" but it involved artists knuckling down to certain new rules of the game.

This stinks.

Do you actually wish to be led in your local area by someone like Sharon Hodgson? Would you entrust your life, the bread on your table and even your children to her maternal care? Or are you just a "jerk" who'd like to be left in peace to run his/her own life, thank you very much if it's all the same to you?

In praise of my countrymen and women

They have a wonderful way of resisting that which is not liked, which I was on the receiving end of in the Blogpower thing in January. They simply shut out the troublemaker, ignore, go about their own business until the thing just dies away or becomes unworkable.

While one half of me was up in arms at the time, the other half was affectionately smiling at my blogfriends. I fervently trust that when all this rubbish, from ID cards on, is foisted on us, the same process of resistance will take place.

Common purpose links

* This is one of the best, from Ian Parker and opens onto many others.

* This is my most widely read though I think later ones go into more detail.

* Some others are here, here and here.






Other excellent sources

1. John Trenchard said, on 14 October 2007:

I'm doing my bit to spread the word about Common Purpose over at my blog
here
here
and
here
(video of the Brian Garrish presentation)

there're a LOT of returns if you search for it on TheyWorkForYou. Questions are being asked in the Commons - and its cross departmental, including the MOD.
They Work For You search

Why is Julia Middleton such a leadership guru when she's never lead anything in her life , beyond running Common Purpose.

Here's a video of her
Note the mad , staring , psychotic EYES... very very weird. If somebody like that started speaking to me I'd run a mile. Instead , the government is going in the opposite direction , putting thousands of public service workers on Common Purpose "leadership" courses.

2. Some nice reading from Englisc Fyrd on it and related issues.

3. The inimitable Ian Parker can't be missed.

Libertarian Party

If you prefer to make your stance more politically, there is a party called the UK Libertarian Party:

Click on pic

[citizens juries] reflective but not representative

James Barlow, Constituency Chairman for the Conservative Party in the three-way marginal Bristol-West seat, was writing about what would presumably be the ultra-boring subject of local recycling and landfill but it turned out to be anything but boring.

The moment he touched on Citizens Juries, danger signals abounded:

Now my party colleagues in the Conservative Group of the council have taken an active part in this process - John Goulandris as Chair of the OSM committee, and Richard Eddy as Chair of the Quality of Life Scrutiny committee.

But I'm concerned that the Jury process is misleading us all. I suspect that it removes the impetus for oversight of Council policy by the opposition party, and it creates an illusion of impartiality and "judicial" deliberation when it's really just a rubber stamp on existing policy - i.e. it ain't a Jury.

As another UK user of Citizens' Juries comments on their website :

"[It c]an be difficult to 'reject' the Jury's recommendations"

In our city, a Citizens' Jury is constructed as an off-shoot of the Citizens' Panel ("Bristol's Biggest Think Tank") which consists of two thousand local residents, some randomly selected, some self-selected.

For the randomly selected, a London firm supplies the questionnaire:

The on-street recruitment questionnaire (Appendix 5 of the latest Jury's report) is less intrusive than that of the Citizens' Panel, but also fails to check whether the respondent is a Bristol Council Tax payer. It also mispells "Cotham" as "Cotam", and indicates that Cabot is a ward in both Central West and Central East Bristol, but I suppose that's to be expected from a London-based market research firm .

If you like, you can apply to join the Citizens' Panel, for which you will be asked your ethnicity, sexual orientation and whether you consider yourself to be transgendered, but not whether you are a council tax payer in Bristol.

But:

...half the jurors are recruited from the existing membership of the Citizens' Panel, and the other half by on-street recruitment...

James comments on its purpose in giving feedback, which it certainly does, but then:

I'm slightly more sceptical of some of the other aspirations for the Panel -

"[to contribute] to democratic renewal and [to encourage] participation in democratic processes"

I thought that was achieved by voting, and doesn't seem to be compatible with the stated utility of the panel "as a vehicle for developing public relations". You can petition the electorate, or persuade the electorate. Doing both at exactly the same time seems a tricky proposition.

So, is this Citizens Jury a legitimate representative body?

The jurors are recruited to be a cross-section of the community: the Jury is said to ‘reflect’ the local population, rather than to ‘represent’ it.

In other words, recommending policy without being elected but with the virtual guarantee of recommnedations being adopted - and leading this process are "facilitators":

The role of the facilitators is to enable the jury to complete its task, not to lead the discussion in any particular direction.

Officially. But the facilitators are also charged with this task [taken from N10's guidelines for the Nine Regional Focus Groups, i.e. the EU concept of regions]:

"Participants will be given facts and figures that are independently verified, they can look at real issues and solutions, just as a jury examines a case. And where these citizens juries are held the intention is to bring people together to explore where common ground exists."

Independently verified by whom? By "experts" approved by the ODPM from whence came Julia Middleton [there are various links halfway down this post on her organization].

Now if you explore CP's training of "facilitators", assuming this is from where they received their training, snippets emerge. Candidates are trained to lead beyond authority, to seize an issue and lead in it, that is, to become facilitators.

And the skill in this is to be able to persuade without coercing, to leave participants feeling that the three-card trick was actually democratically arrived at and government can then point to a democratically arrived at decision.

One of the central motifs in the whole EU drive is "legitimacy".

This is why Lisbon was, why the referenda were, why Brown won't put a referendum on the EU to the British electorate. It's not correct that Westminster acts lawlessly - they are obsessed with being able to claim they acted lawfully.

Hang on a minute - why would a government need to spend "£45,000 to run the jury", muliplied by however many Citizen Panels there are [by page 10 of Google, they're still being listed]? Why the expense?

The illusion of legitimacy.

Now look at the whole mechanism. There is a group of approved citizens who, for a start, have been raised above the common throng to oversee local government policy, traditionally the preserve of councils. But councils are corrupt, incompetent, in thrall to paymasters and political parties, aren't they?

So The Select Body of Citizens feels it's doing important work and that government will listen to their recommendations. Hell, isn't that what we're all going on about - government listening? And they do listen - to the decision the facilitator is able to get out of the forum.

The leader poses questions, people respond, the recalcitrant or obstinate objector is bypassed and the decision is arrived at. Any trained teacher could tell you about this technique and as a former Head, I was on my guard against it - the others are tacitly encouraged, by raised eyebrow or other non-verbal expression, to either approve or disapprove and always there is the desire to please by the honoured citizen who, don't forget, has already been preselected.

But what if the citizen selection process didn't completely work, what if someone has the temerity to ask: "What is your legitimacy?"

Here is an example of this occurring. John Trenchard mentioned Englisc Fyrd, who quoted:

And yet another blog has noticed CP. This speech by CP head honcho Julia Middleton. And I quote:

No region and no part and no part of any country are ever going to go anywhere until it manages to engage the talented.

and:

The other day I was in a meeting in Belfast, I have no idea how I ended up in this meeting. It was a really wonderful meeting with about fifteen people there. When we were really getting going there was this little jerk in the corner, who kept piping out “What is your legitimacy?” and we all said “just shut up” and we kept on going.

and:

Anyway, he went on and on about our legitimacy to such an extent that in the end I turned to him and said “Let me just be absolutely clear that at this meeting we are not trying to allocate any public funding, nor are we trying to make any public policy.Actually in this meeting are the fifteen people that are the only people in Northern Ireland that have done anything for the homeless in Northern Ireland for the last 10 years. That is our legitimacy and it is a totally compelling and overwhelming legitimacy”.

Note the sleight of hand - the legitimacy question wasn't directed at the 15 people. It was directed at Julia Middleton and Common Purpose. Note the disdain for dissent - "just shut up", "jerk". That says a lot.

and then the anti-democratic agenda stall is laid out:

I believe with a passion that there is a democratic space. There is an enormous space in it for politicians. They call the shots. They are accountable. That is right and proper. But there is another space for leaders of civil society.

Coming back to James' verbatim text of the process on waste recycling in Bristol - read through it and make up your own mind about how far this discussion was "not led".

Citizens Connect is different and yet along the same lines, in this case citizens connecting directly with the government electronically but not face to face [Micro-Control 7], on whom Englisc Fyrd writes, [when looking at the Dome question]:

But with millions pouring down the drain (well into a few people's pockets) an attempted diamond heist and daily financial craziness at the Dome, no one really noticed anything unusual when Camelot, whoever runs Common Purpose and Lord Falconer gave £2 million to Common Purpose to run a web site which links to the governments' sites, which is all Citizen's Connection is.

This is the government's thrust - circumventing the elected channels within the UK. Brown's own speech included:

So the citizens jury on crime will look at how we can empower people in their neighbourhoods to work with the police and other agencies to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.

and:

It is a politics of common purpose, because our country is built on the fairness of the British people.

So, the juries produce "recommendations", of which James notes that there is a history of Jury recommendations being quite coercive on policy formulation [supported within the full text of Brown's speech] and not simply advisory. James further notes:

The whole terminology of "jury" and "witnesses" is misleading, as this is not really an antagonistic process. There is no judge, no prosecution or defence, but rather an agenda to be agreed. In fact the use of the trapping of a proper jury are just theatre to mask the manipulative nature of the exercise.

There was a similar process, sometime earlier, when the leading figures in the Scottish Arts were led in a "debate" which was not a debate:

After an obviously unwanted debate (chaired by Mrs. Jack McConnell, Labour Party) in which the audience clearly did not accept what they were told, the final words from Seona Reid (then Director of the SAC) conveyed the impression that some form of transaction had taken place, that "SAC was working to ensure the arts were incorporated into the range of Government policies - but arts organisations and artists needed to play their part in making this a reality".

So let's summarize. The ODPM trains pre-existing "facilitators" and from whence are they drawn? Well, you tell me - where would you expect such leadership to come from?

"Would an organization of such magnitude as Common Purpose, whose whole purpose is to have people in place in all regions of the EU-UK for the purpose of "leading beyond authority" and given the government's own first thrust into regional assemblies which was soundly defeated, would CP stand back from these Citizen's Juries and play no leadership role whatever?"

There's a little matter they seem to have forgotten though, as James notes:

But hold on a minute - this is essentially what Councillors are supposed to do isn't it? Scrutiny of legislation and local service provision?

So James asks what such "Citizens' Juries'" prime directives really are:

Well let's look at the originators of the Citizens' Jury concept (and owners of the US trademark) - what do they have to say?

"Democracy is based on the idea that elected officials and public agencies carry out the will of the people. But the manipulative nature of our election campaigns and the great power of lobbyists make it doubtful that government policy is based upon the wishes of a well-informed and engaged public. Public opinion polls can tell what people quickly think in response to telephoned survey questions. The actual "will of the people" may be something quite different."

Let me have a go at translating that: The people (that's you and me) don't know what we want if you ask us, and we're easily swayed by slick election campaigns. In fact we need someone else to tell us what we really need.

But even beyond circumventing elected authorities, there has to be some further point to it. It has to be something more than just "legitimacy".

Helpful in understanding this is the Carpathian Foundation's tagline "five nations, one community" and that is an indicator or what is going on. With its "Carpathian Cross-border European Citizens’ Panel", the purpose is clear - to empower sections of the citizenry, handpicked and vetted for affiliations, in the upper AB socio-economic groups, in geographical divisions which do not correspond to national boundaries.

That is - the EU is circumventing national and traditional local government to indirectly implement policy.

You might like to read the Micro-Control series on this blog through the search at the top left and it goes into aspects of Common Purpose's common purpose of setting up regional leadership under Westminster, which in turn has signed Lisbon and is firmly on the EU path, a point few dispute today.

The very first warning sign for me, in James' post, of the stink of CP was in the words:

"ethnicity, sexual orientation and whether you consider yourself to be transgendered".

Excuse me but how exactly do these details reflect on waste recycling in Bristol, a matter supposedly thrashed out in local council meetings?

Chair of New Deal for Community in Liverpool quoted the advice given to Franklyn D Roosevelt when he set up his own New Deal:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial."

It's the process of diverting and hijacking the agenda of what began in a well meaning way, of harnessing a pre-existing desire in the community and giving it to them in your own way. The idea of citizens having a say is admirable.

But to implement it, it can only be done with government assistance and governments, especially of the Brown ilk, are not noted for divesting themselves of either power or funding unless there is a common purpose. A Roosevelt Justice, quoted from the same source above, said:

"The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

Well meaning people are often naive [e.g. the development of the atom bomb] and this is the genesis of PC and from where the diversion and hijacking come. There are a great many out there less altruistic, less naive and all too willing to harness buzzwords to pursue entirely different agendas.

[eu monster] notes from a little jerk

Further to yesterday's post on the EU and Common Purpose, it's good to see it picked up on in a number of places.

John Trenchard has also done so and he mentions Englisc Fyrd 's work and that of others.

And yet another blog has noticed CP. This speech by CP head honcho Julia Middleton. And I quote:

No region and no part and no part of any country are ever going to go anywhere until it manages to engage the talented.

and:

The other day I was in a meeting in Belfast, I have no idea how I ended up in this meeting. It was a really wonderful meeting with about fifteen people there. When we were really getting going there was this little jerk in the corner, who kept piping out “What is your legitimacy?” and we all said “just shut up” and we kept on going.

and:

Anyway, he went on and on about our legitimacy to such an extent that in the end I turned to him and said “Let me just be absolutely clear that at this meeting we are not trying to allocate any public funding, nor are we trying to make any public policy.Actually in this meeting are the fifteen people that are the only people in Northern Ireland that have done anything for the homeless in Northern Ireland for the last 10 years. That is our legitimacy and it is a totally compelling and overwhelming legitimacy”.

Note the sleight of hand - the legitmacy question wasn't directed at the 15 people. It was directed at Julia Middleton and Common Purpose. Note the disdain for dissent - "just shut up", "jerk". That says a lot.

and then the anti-democratic agenda stall is laid out:

I believe with a passion that there is a democratic space. There is an enormous space in it for politicians. They call the shots. They are accountable. That is right and proper. But there is another space for leaders of civil society.

That is the thing which permeates the whole business - this preparedness for unelected "leaders" to step in and take over key functions in the former UK. This is the attitude of disdain which permeates Common Purpose and that arrogance cannot have no foundation. I mean they must feel reasonably confident that the plan is going swimmingly to speak in that tone.

People, this is what our parents fought in WW2 - the destruction of our country by a European power and in achieving that end, as any historian knows, it used quislings.

Only this time the quislings are home grown and come right out of the ODPM. Do read Bukovsky's take if you haven't already done so and realize this is not science fiction but parliamentary funded action within our land and within a greater and ever expanding Europe.

Why would Milliband speak of the EU super-state not being an EU super-state, not at all, no way, unless that matter had been very much on his mind? Well, this "little jerk in the corner" - Higham and many other little jerks - are going to keep asking: "Where is your legitimacy, Ms Middleton?"

Parker Joseph ran a piece on Common Purpose being referred to in Brown's speech as part of his plans for Britain but a strange thing happened. As Ian said:

You can view the current version on the No.10 Website here, where all references to Common Purpose have now been removed. You can view that Cache version here, but I am going to reproduce it in full in case it 'disappears'.

He then does so here.

Now if there was nothing untoward in mentioning Common Purpose, why then was it removed from the later version? These little questions are minor but their sum total point in certain directions which really should be taken note of by the UK blogosphere.

And what of this, also noted by Parker Joseph - this is just outright illegal. Common Purpose and Deutche Bank - Teachers Pack for campaigning in the Classroom. If you can spare [waste is a better word because it's such pap] a few minutes, please peruse it.

When are the mainstream UK bloggers going to pick up and run with all of this? Who cares about Clegg and Huhne's little scrap? Let's get moving on what is happening in our country while we still have it.

Sorry to be such a little jerk. Now I'll retire to my corner again and mumble at myself.

[service transformation] initial ferreting on this and other matters

Service Transformation

HM Treasury states the rationale behind the Service Transformation in the UK. Excerpts:

2.10 The first progress measure will track how much contact between government and citizens is "avoidable".

3.3.4 The types of transformation covered by this Agreement will simply not be possible unless the public sector can establish the identity of the customer it is dealing with simply and with certainty, and be able to pass relevant information between different parts of government.

DSTP-A.39 The virtual court prototype is very exciting in terms of its potential to deliver speedy justice by shortening the process from arrest to charge to sentence.

Common Purpose's common purpose

Common Purpose programmes produce people who lead beyond their authority and can produce change beyond their direct circle of control.

Hansard Written answers re Common Purpose

Thursday, 26 July 2007: Work and Pensions: Departments: Common Purpose

Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative) | Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department paid to Common Purpose in each of the last five years; for what purpose; and what the outcome of the expenditure was.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions) | Hansard source

A number of DWP senior managers have attended leadership courses run by Common Purpose in the last five years. The total expenditure for each of the last five years is listed in the following table. The courses have helped improve leadership skills. Given the nature of these courses, they have also helped foster valuable partnerships in the local community which can be used to improve the service offered to our customers.

Total Spend
2002-03	43,452
2003-04	72,691
2004-05	48,980
2005-06	43,111
2006-07	31,161

Did Anne McGuire satisfactorily answer the question?

[eu constitution] the eleven regions of what was the uk

Parker Joseph sets the cat among the pigeons with his article and I have mixed feelings. Though a lot of it is assuredly happening [and I've seen much on the regional assemblies], it's hard to get hard data and not just assertion.

Common Purpose [whom I began to pursue but was sidetracked] have definitely gone to ground after recent publicity and one wonders why.

This is part of Parker Joseph's thesis:

South West RDA divisions will be:

1. Bristol
2. South Gloucestershire
3. North Somerset
4. Bath and North East Somerset
5. Swindon
6. Bournemouth
7. Poole
8. Torbay
9. Plymouth

These will be the new area names within the region. Each Region will be run by RDA’s, supported by personnel headed by graduates in each district from Common Purpose.

The same will happen to each and every county of England.

Scotland and Wales are safe, and will remain as they are, with their own new parliaments, each being a region to remain intact, but they will lose national status, and be downgraded by our new master in Europe to regional status. England will no longer exist as a country, just 9 regions.

The UK as represented in Europe will be known as the 11 regions of the UK.

This is not unique to the UK, it is happening to every member state of Europe.

The headlong rush to get the Reform Treaty ratified by 1^st January 2009 is so that there can be ‘elections’ on a regional basis to the European Parliament later in the year, which under the EU Constitution will be a rubber stamp parliament ruled over by the European Commission and the Council of Europe, run by EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso until the new Presidential office is set up.

With Monday’s extension of RIPA powers, the government has created an apparatus of control only matched in sophistication by the system in China known as the Gold Shield Project.

Wake up and smell the milk burning, Doris. Gold Shield is coming here, too.

Right, so a detailed assertion has been made. Now it's a question of whether it holds water or not. The problem with this is that the structures recently brought in are, on the surface, innocent development agencies. While they could easily swing over to command and control administrations, are the personnel in place the type who could run such a show?

I'd like to look at the CVs of Juliet Williams and colleagues or perhaps they're not planned to remain in charge post 2010. All of it is a tricky question and one of two things is true - either pundits are interweaving snippets of truth with flights of fancy or else they actually do have hold of the coat-tails of something being slipped into place.

At this point I don't really know.

[common purpose] just the facts, ma'am

The sleeper issue of the moment is Common Purpose and good to see bloggers beginning to pick up a whiff of this one, via Parker Joseph, Battle for Britain and Postman Patel.

What we can't seem to get is hard data on who is driving it from Europe or if it is stemming from Britain itself.

Good material on Common Purpose

UK Column
CP Exposed
Stop CP
Ken Craggs
BetweenMyths

Some of my own, based on material supplied

Common Purpose - more evidence
Common Purpose dishonesty
An oppressor by any other name
CP - the cancer spreads
OFSTED - the fish rots at the head

Common Purpose at work and play
More than corrupt
Groupthink spreads like a cancer through the UK
Is this how to run a country?
One ring to rule them all
Paradiso and the future of the internet
Demos, Common Purpose, Labour, Tories, security companies
Common Purpose - the disease spreads to the Netherlands
Common Purpose - meanwhile, in America
Groupthink - gentle art of persuasion
Common Purpose - initially to have a coffee
Common Purpose - just the facts, ma'am
Common Purpose - rhetoric of the quisling

References to Common Purpose appear in many other posts.

[common purpose] rhetoric of the quisling

 
You are the Chosen, the voice of the New Age, the Leader of the Future. The Rules are not for such as you...

Though not directly concerning our North American and Antipodaean friends, this actually does concern them very much because they are very much part of the thrust for:

Common Purpose

And what exactly is this common purpose? They state it themselves:

Leading beyond Authority

As Ian Parker-Joseph says:

It began in the UK in 1988, where it has some 45 offices, but has now taken its sun symbol logo into many countries as Common Purpose International.

The real issue is the craziness coming out of Bavaria, Zurich, Paris and New York, not to mention London.

Very easy to spot - diffuse light blues blending into diffuse yellows in their headers, sun symbols, meaningless drivel as taglines, e.g. securing the future today and other balderdash like that. Their pages are slick and businesslike and they use feelgood terminology about "bringing people together" and so on. Second Life, the U.N. and Common Purpose are examples.

On the surface, it's all about management, leadership and the new technological revolution but the rhetoric behind it is exactly the same which Agatha Christie wrote of in N or M [Dodd, Mead & Co., 1941]. It's the same old story - pinpointing likely people in positions of authority or who are likely to be, tweaking their egos by associating them with snippets of the elite which controls the government of the nations, how they'll be part of the crack leadership group sweeping away mismanagement and inefficiency and so on and so on.

An example of one of these Brave New Worlders:

Common Purpose graduate Cressida Dick issued the 'shoot-to-kill' order to police officers that led to an innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes [being shot].

It is eugenics and Nietzsche and Zarathustra and things the average pub drinker knows next to nothing of. But I know of it because I was once a possible bright light in the firmament until I showed myself to be "unfit" for purpose and I'm proud of it. But my ego's still there for all to see.

Do read the whole post and follow the links if you were still in any doubt of the common purpose for which this group is simply one small tentacle.

That's the end of this post but there is the text from N or M, by Agatha Christie, Chapter 14:

Do believe me when I say I really admire both you and your husband immensely. You've got grit and pluck. It's people like you who will be needed in the new State — the State that will arise in this country when your present imbecile Government is vanquished. We want to turn some of our enemies into friends — those that are worth while.

Let me impress upon you what so few people in this country seem to understand. Our Leader does not intend to conquer this country in the sense that you all think. He aims at creating a new Britain — a Britain strong in its own power — ruled over, not by Germans, but by Englishmen. And the best type of Englishmen — Englishmen with brains and breeding and courage. A brave new world, as Shakespeare puts it.

We want to do away with muddle and inefficiency. With bribery and corruption. With self-seeking and money-grubbing — and in this new state we want people like you and your husband — brave and resourceful — enemies that that have been, friends to be. You would be surprised if you knew how many there are in this country, as in others, who have sympathy with and belief in our aims.

Among us all we will create a new Europe — a Europe of peace and progress. Try and see it that way — because, I assure you — it is that way...

His voice was compelling, magnetic.

Later, in Chapter 15, the investigating officer concludes:

Amongst them were two chief Constables, an Air Vice-Marshal, two Generals, the Head of an Armaments Works, a Cabinet Minister, many Police Superintendents, Commanders of Local Volunteer Defense Organizations, and various military and naval lesser fry, as well as members of our own Intelligence Force."

Tommy and Tuppence stared. "Incredible!" said the former.

Grant shook his head. "You do not know the force of the ... propaganda. It appeals to something in man, some desire or lust for power. These people were ready to betray their country not for money, but in a kind of megalomaniacal pride in what they, they themselves, were going to achieve for that country. In every land it has been the same. It is the Cult of Lucifer — Lucifer, Son of the Morning. Pride and a desire for personal glory!"

Anyone with any knowledge of the 5th Column in WWII would understand that the leopard might have changed its spots but the snarl is still the same.

Good material on Common Purpose

UK Column
CP Exposed
Stop CP
Ken Craggs
BetweenMyths

Some of my own, based on material supplied

Common Purpose - more evidence
Common Purpose dishonesty
An oppressor by any other name
CP - the cancer spreads
OFSTED - the fish rots at the head
Common Purpose at work and play
More than corrupt
Groupthink spreads like a cancer through the UK
Is this how to run a country?
One ring to rule them all
Paradiso and the future of the internet
Demos, Common Purpose, Labour, Tories, security companies
Common Purpose - the disease spreads to the Netherlands
Common Purpose - meanwhile, in America
Groupthink - gentle art of persuasion
Citizens' juries and Common Purpose
Common Purpose - initially to have a coffee
Common Purpose - just the facts, ma'am
Common Purpose - rhetoric of the quisling

References to Common Purpose appear in many other posts.