Ombudsman Services: Broken Solutions. Broken Markets. Broken Promises - A Broken Britain. (14)

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up. (Attempt 14)

14) Ombudsman Services: Broken Solutions, Broken Markets, Broken Promises - A Broken Britain.

Dear Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark,

On the day the Culture Secretary, Matt Hancock broke David Cameron's promise to the British people to hold Leveson 2, The Guardian carried two articles detailing other scandals - one that has resulted in an inquiry and one that hasn't.

The one that hasn't was entitled, "Battle of Orgreave: more unreleased police files uncovered" by Alan Travis. This concerned important evidence which was ignored by the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, when she arrived at her decision to refuse a public inquiry into the events surrounding Orgreave. Her reason was that, "Ultimately, there were no deaths or wrongful convictions." Although the police did their best.

It's important to remember that when high-achievers are engaged in a Full English Cover-Up any excuse for covering-up will do. However, the more outrageous the excuse the better it becomes as it bestows upon the excuse maker a certain cachet. 

In the unlikely event that at some future date The Establishment should appear to be on the point of agreeing to an inquiry someone else from within the ranks will be found to stand up and say that actually it's not in the national Interest to do so. That it's too expensive. Or far too time-consuming. And that by then the original excuse-maker will have received their Establishment reward and moved on to greener pastures. Perhaps even a seat in the House of Lords

The Guardian article that did was entitled - Inquiry urges payouts for victims of postwar UK child migration scheme" and was written by Owen Bowcott. It details the tragic lives handed down to child migrants sent to various Commonwealth countries by seemingly unknowing or uncaring adults. Owen Bowcott wrote, "The IICSA's chair, Prof Alexis Jay, said the policy had continued despite the evidence over many years that children were suffering and blamed, 'successive" British governments."

Being in a position of power and being fully committed to ignoring the evidence is crucial to the continued remarkable success of The Full English Cover-Up. We have set a gold standard in this particular field of endeavour. The landscape is littered with just such colluders. There is a waiting list to join.

Mr Hancock's justification for the unjustifiable decision to cover-up corporate malpractice and the questionable relationship between press and police went as follows, "we do not believe that re-opening this costly and time-consuming public inquiry is the right way forward."

According to Mr Hancock, the promise once made by the Conservatives to the British public was trumped by the need to allow the media industry to, "hold the powerful to account and respond to today's challenges."

It slipped his mind that the powerful who need to be held to account are the very billionaires who control the press and media industry in this country but who, for tax purposes, choose to live elsewhere. He should have designed an App to remind himself of this fact. He hadn't and so didn't respond to the challenge.

In failing to do so he also seems to have forgotten Lord Harmsworth and his Daily Mail headline, "Enemies of the People."  This was when the Daily Mail spoke of their readers' Mail-generated fury over those out of touch judges who had, to the outrage of the Mail, declared war on democracy.

The Conservative Party, through Mr Hancock, has thus gone from saying they would democratically hold the powerful to account through Leveson 2 - by examining corporate malpractice and the relationship between the press and the police -  to choosing instead to undemocratically defend the very corporate malpractice it had once been so critical of.

He thus displayed all the logic of a Property Ombudsman.

The Culture Secretary, when announcing yet another Full English Cover-Up, completed the government's U-turn by saying, "But we will take action to safeguard the lifeblood of our democratic discourse and tackle the challenges our media face today not a decade ago."

Clearly, sections of the self-regulating free press are determined to control that discourse, maintain their privileged position and silence any challenge to their largely un-regulated practices by instructing their office staff at Westminster to sanction the cover-up. And this has now duly been done.

The Late Peter Preston wrote, "No wonder that respondents to a You Gov poll the other day believe (74%) that owners of UK papers and TV stations should be full residents of Great Britain and pay their taxes here."

(Press bias can't be cured by a British passport)

That's more than voted to Leave. It would indeed be in the National Interest for press and media barons to reside permanently in the UK and would mean that we really will be taking back control when it happens.

In the meantime our democratic lifeblood is being sucked out of us by those who unhesitatingly seek to hide the evidence, ignore the evidence and/or distort it, but who then brazenly stand up in Parliament and make misleading statements to the contrary.

Martin Lewis's and his MoneySavingExperts have described the regulation and practices of ombudsmen as being, "farcical." If that is indeed the case then the regulation and practices of the billionaires who control the British media are, "very farcical indeed."

It's how the powerful rig and abuse the system whilst avoiding tax at the same time.

Sir Brian Leveson stated that the, "extent of wrongdoing (at News UK) has been far greater than the (first) inquiry was informed" and that there was still a, "legitimate expectation" of a full public examination.

(Leveson 2: what was it mean to achieve? The Guardian)

However, The Guardian does not support that legitimate expectation for a full public examination. Nor does it believe in a state regulator and most certainly not a state press regulator with teeth. And so The Guardian has allowed itself to become disinterested in what the full extent of that corporate media wrongdoing was.

Q. Investigate corporate wrongdoing or undermine speedy, fair and transparent press regulation? The latter every time it would seem.

The Guardian is it says, "independently" regulated along with the Financial Times. Then there is the regulator recognised by the Press Recognition Panel. Next up comes IMPRESS backed by Max Mosley and finally comes the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). All in all a regulatory wild-west.

As a consequence there is to be little or no transparency or accountability when it comes to regulating the British press. A press that is, we're told, tirelessly seeking to hold the powerful to account and make their corporate practices more transparent and democratic.

A British press that tells us to take back control but that will not relinquish one iota of the control it has seized for itself - with a little help from its jobbing politicians..

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, why hasn't a Government Minister stood up in Parliament to explain to consumers why Ombudsman Services were able to offer a broken solution to a broken market for so many years and get away with it scot-free - why the cover-up?

Finally ,we should like to point out that our office is not funded by Max Mosley. Or anyone else for that matter. We have given up tea and coffee.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

The Ombudsmans61percent campaign is at: www.blogger.com and www.facebook.com Ombmans Sixtyone-percent