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The trouble with embarrassing friends

George Osborne; Peter Mandelson; Cherie Blair; Barack Obama; embarrassed woman; Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew has been criticised for the company he keeps. But should public figures be held to account for their friends and acquaintances?

You’ve probably got one too. The friend you can’t take anywhere. The one who always says or does the wrong thing.

You can’t just drop them. They’re your friend, after all. But deep down, you worry that sooner or later they’re going to get you into trouble.

To many the issue will be a familiar one. But it takes on an extra level of significance when you’re the Duke of York and the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment.

Prince Andrew has faced a storm criticism over his friendship with US tycoon Jeffrey Epstein, who was jailed for sex offences. He has also been attacked for lunching at Buckingham Palace with a member of the former Tunisian regime and accused in Parliament of taking a holiday with a Libyan gun-smuggler.

His private secretary insists any suggestions of impropriety are “without foundation”.

The philosophy of friendship

Hands

Mark Vernon, philosopher and author of The Meaning of Friendships

In a democracy you run everything fairly – one person, one vote.

But to have a friend is to treat someone in a special way.

It’s a good thing to treat everyone in the same way. But it’s also a good thing to have friends who are special to you.

We use very ugly words to describe this conflict – nepotism and corruption.

But very often there isn’t the clear boundary between public and private that we like to imagine.

But the prince is one of a slew of public figures to have his choice of acquaintances held up to public scrutiny.

The social circles of leading politicians fell under the spotlight in 2008 when both then-shadow chancellor George Osborne and Lord Mandelson, at the time the EU’s trade chief, denied any impropriety when it emerged they had enjoyed the hospitality of Russian millionaire on his yacht.

Cherie Blair, the then-prime minister’s wife, was attacked for her closeness to the fitness guru Carole Caplin – especially after it emerged that Ms Caplin had introduced the Blairs to Peter Foster, a convicted con-man who helped the couple buy two flats. The couple insisted they knew nothing of his criminal record.

It’s not just within UK politics that friendships are so sensitive. In his 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama’s closeness to Rev Jeremiah Wright threatened to derail the former’s bid for the presidency after footage emerged of racially inflammatory sermons delivered by the pastor.

President Obama has also come under fire for his associations with convicted fraudster Tony Rezko and William Ayers, a member of the 1960s radical group the Weather Underground, which carried out a domestic bombing campaign.

His predecessor-but-one Bill Clinton was also widely condemned over his decision in 2001 to pardon the fugitive financier, Marc Rich, whose wife had donated money to Mr Clinton’s presidential library.

All of the above examples suggest a friendship can easily become a handicap for a public figure. Even where there is nothing dubious in the friend’s history, an unrevealed business can throw up the mirage of a conflict of interest.

Matthew Parris

“There’s always a conflict between behaving decently in your private capacity and properly in your public capacity”

Matthew Parris Times columnist and former Conservative MP

But the Times columnist and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris wonders whether it is really realistic to expect public figures to fully vet the backgrounds of their acquaintances before accepting them as friends.

He fears that such expectations will push an increasingly risk-averse political class – already drawn from a narrow social stratum – even deeper into insulation from the real world, with all its flaws, failings and foibles.

“Politicians can’t win,” he says. “If they’re very callous and drop any friends who might embarrass them, we’ll criticise them for being cold and calculating. But if they don’t, we go on about how they’ve committed a gaffe.

“There’s always a conflict between behaving decently in your private capacity and properly in your public capacity.

“To behave appropriately as a public person will very often mean you behaving inappropriately as a private person. I’m inclined to be sympathetic to those who put their private obligations first.”

And it’s not just the obvious public figures whose lives are under scrutiny – royals, politicians, judges, and clergy. Everyone from headteachers to sport stars can find themselves in trouble for an inappropriate friendship, or a suspected conflict of interest.

When private collides with public, however, there will always be those who believe a public figure’s primary responsibility must always be to the latter.

Why politics and friendship don’t mix

Oona King

Oona King, Labour peer and former MP

It’s not just difficult to balance a normal social life with a political career, it’s almost impossible.

You inevitably become more guarded, and stick closer to the politicos who “understand”. Slowly you lose your “normal” friends – the ones who keep you normal.

In terms of striking a balance between duty to the public and duty to your friends, the public virtually always come first.

The public probably get the politicians they deserve, because our system forces politicians to “do” politics day and night. It forces them to give up friends and family.

The result is a country run by people who don’t put family first, and forget the meaning of friendship. I’d like to see the system change.

Kevin Maguire, political commentator and associate editor of the Daily Mirror, warns that as far as MPs are concerned, it is extremely difficult to determine where friendship ends and nepotism begins.

For this reason, he says, politicians’ networks and circles need to be accountable.

“You talk to the most humble backbencher and they tell you that they get invited to all these fantastic, lavish receptions – it’s not because they’re wonderful people, it’s because they’ve got influence,” he says.

“If they’re just hanging out with fabulously wealthy people it means they’re only being exposed to that section of society’s point of view.

“I don’t mind them being friends with teachers or local government workers or people who do real jobs. But we could do with fewer old Etonians and bankers having influence over our politics.”

However high their expectations of their leaders’ social activities, the general public may well be gaining a first-hand understanding of what it is like to be under scrutiny.

Psychotherapist Lucy Beresford says having one’s friendships dissected in public is traumatic enough for the famous and powerful.

But she warns that, in an age where all our connections are itemised and accessible to all on social networking sites, who we choose to be friends with puts us in the firing line as never before.

“With things like Facebook, we think that we’re in control of the information that gets put out there,” she warns.

“But then someone comes along and says: ‘You’re a friend a Joe Bloggs, he’s a bad person – therefore you’re a bad person too.’

“In extreme cases it could be quite destabilising. But on the other hand, it could be quite positive if it acts as a wake-up call.”

Your loyalties to that embarrassing friend of yours may be tested further than you expected.



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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Are call centres the factories of the 21st Century?

India Mill chimney in Darwen A number of industrial factories have now been turned into offices used as call centres

More people than ever before work in call centres in the UK but, with the perception of them so low in consumers’ minds, are they just the modern-day equivalents of the production line?

The chimney of the India Mill factory outside Blackburn in Lancashire still stands today. When it was built in 1867, it was the tallest and the most expensive in the country but its shadow now falls over office space rather than the industrial machinery it used to.

This is a scene that has become increasingly common across the UK as the service industry expands across what William Blake once described as this “green and pleasant land”. At the same time, the manufacturing industry has contracted sharply.

Immediately after World War II, manufacturing accounted for around 40% of the UK economy’s output but now only 8% of jobs are in the manufacturing sector, according to the Office for National Statistics.

At the same time, the rise of the call centre – known in the industry as contact centres – has been seemingly unstoppable.

“More people have worked in call centres than ever worked in the mining industry, and I researched that in 1998,” says Matt Thorne, who wrote a novel based on his experiences in a call centre.

“The interesting thing about call centres is they’re great if you’ve got something else but it’s like a proper job without any of the benefits.

“You got four 15-minute breaks in a day and the amount of time you spent in toilets actually was monitored.”

In pictures…

Ricky Gervais in the Office

Britain’s workplaces as seen in the sitcoms

Over one million people are employed in call centres, according to analysis firm ContactBabel. This is over 3.5% of the entire UK workforce.

When call centre pioneer Direct Line opened its lines in Croydon, Greater London, with 63 employees on 2 April 1985, no-one could have imagined the impact it would have on the UK’s service industry. In 2004 it received over 22 million phone calls.

But many just see them as a nuisance. Time and time again, call centres have been voted one of the most frustrating things to use, with one survey even concluding that calling one is more stressful than getting married or going to the dentist.

“They were predominantly set up as a way for companies to save money – whether the customers liked it or not,” says Ann-Marie Stagg – chairwoman of the Contact Centre Managers’ Association.

“You don’t hear about workers having to put their hand up to go to the toilet anymore”

Steve Morrell Indusry analyst

And if just phoning up a call centre was stressful, imagine working with a pre-determined script and repeating it day after day.

“The aim was to get everything done in 35 seconds, so there’s not really a lot of room for warmth,” says comedian Andy White, who worked in a call centre until 2002.

“The bonus system was very difficult because part of it was based on the people around you so people were thinking ‘why should I bother?’ when it only takes one person to not turn up for the figures to suffer and then there goes my bonus.”

It is this perception of call centres, as a telephonic battery farm with repetitive work like in the factories generations ago, that the industry is desperately working to change.

Find out more…

Kirsty Young

Watch Kirsty Young discover The British at Work, Thursday 10 March, 2100 GMT, BBC Two.

The British at Work

The highest percentage of workers in call centres are in Scotland, the North East, Yorkshire and the North West – traditionally the industrial towns of old. Over 5% of all workers in these areas are working in contact centres. The lowest percentage of contact centre workers is in London.

“You hear a lot of nonsense about why call centres started up where they did – accents and stuff like that,” says Steve Morrell, of ContactBabel.

“But that’s nothing to do with it at all. It’s all to do with a cheap, available labour force.”

Call centres are classic targets for mockery. In the film Big Nothing, David Schwimmer’s character Charlie is placed in the “Jennifers and Stephens” section of a call centre because “callers like to think they get the same service rep”.

A criticism regularly voiced is the “quantity over quality” set of statistics by which workers are measured. Often, a certain number of calls has to be answered by each member of staff per hour, in the same way as factory workers are sometimes paid per item they produce.

“All that would happen is the adviser would talk faster so no-one could understand them or they’d just cut the customer off,” says Stagg.

People working in a call centreCall centre managers increasingly believe it is how to work better rather than faster that is important

“It’s all a vicious circle. The customer would just ring up again and be more upset. It took a while for the industry to work that out.”

But, Stagg is keen to point out, call centres have changed.

“These places used to be dark satanic mills but the industry really has got its act together,” she says.

Around one third of call centre staff now has a university degree and this seems to be a growing trend as graduate unemployment is at its highest level for a decade.

“Improving working conditions is a slow process,” says Mr Morrell.

“But you don’t hear about workers having to put their hand up to go to the toilet anymore.”

Institutions such as the University of Central Lancashire are even offering MSc courses in contact centre management and average pay for workers is increasing.

“I don’t think anyone sets out to work in a call centre because they’re interested in it,” says Stagg.

“Most people that come in see it as suiting their hours or go in there for a couple of years before they move on. What takes some people by surprise is that there is a career path – and you can move from the call centre into different parts of the business.”

Perhaps then, unlike the factories of old, ambitious workers will not be stuck on the shop floor for long.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

NHS shake-up ‘like gas sell-off’

Hospital patientCompetition could cause hospitals to close, the BMA says
Related Stories

The shake-up of the NHS in England has been likened by doctors’ leaders to the privatisation of the gas, electricity and water industries.

Under the changes, regulators will be encouraged to ensure there is fair competition between NHS trusts and private health firms.

But the British Medical Association said the move could lead to some hospitals closing.

The government has always said such a scenario was unlikely.

The intervention by the doctors’ union comes as MPs prepare to debate the bill, which will pave the way for GP consortiums and the further opening up of the NHS to the private sector.

The House of Commons’ Public Bill Committee is expected to scrutinise the draft legislation this week.

The bill includes provisions to get Monitor, which will become the financial regulator for the health service, to ensure NHS and private hospitals can compete for business.

The BMA said the powers it has are the same as those given to the Office of Fair Trading, which governs the gas, electricity and water industries.

BMA leader Dr Hamish Meldrum said: “Whatever your views of the privatisation of other services, it is certainly not the right model for the NHS. The consequences of failure in healthcare are far more serious than in other industries.

“At best, providers of care will be distracted from their main responsibility of providing excellent services.

“At worst, hospitals will close – not necessarily for appropriate reasons – and large groups of patients will have greater difficulty in accessing the care they need.”

“At worst, hospitals will close – not necessarily for appropriate reasons – and large groups of patients will have greater difficulty in accessing the care they need”

Dr Hamish Meldrum British Medical Association

Private sector firms already see NHS patients through minor treatment centres that have contracts with the health service, or the patient choice initiative where private hospitals agree to see people with the NHS paying.

But this only accounts for a small fraction of activity. Under the government’s plans, the NHS will be opened up to “any willing provider” meaning private firms will be able to get a greater share of the market.

However, unlike most markets, there will be no competition on price. Instead, all hospitals, whether private or NHS, will be forced to treat patients under a strictly regulated range of tariffs for different procedures.

A pool of money has also been set aside to ensure essential services, such as A&E units, are kept running even if the wider hospital is struggling to attract patients.

The future of hospitals under the shake-up, which will see GPs get control of most of the NHS budget, has received a great deal of attention in recent weeks.

The King’s Fund has said some hospital units will have to close and even Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, has accepted they will have to change to survive.

However, in an interview with the BBC last month Sir David said it was unlikely that any would close entirely.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Discovery in historic touchdown

Discovery (Nasa)One last time: Discovery prepares to bring itself out of orbit to landing in Florida
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America’s most experienced space shuttle, Discovery, is about to close its remarkable 27-year career.

The orbiter is set to fire its thrusters to bring it out of the sky and into a glide path that runs into Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

Discovery is destined for a museum on its return – Nasa is retiring its three remaining reusable spaceplanes.

The “leader of the fleet” has been on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station.

Duties included delivering a new store room and a sophisticated humanoid robot. The ship’s crew also performed two spacewalks to carry out maintenance tasks on the exterior of the platform.

DISCOVERY: FLEET LEADERIt is named after various historic vessels, including James Cook’s 18th Century explorerDiscovery was the first spacecraft to retrieve a satellite and bring it back to EarthIt has completed more missions than any other vehicle in the space shuttle fleetThe shuttle visited both the Russian Mir station and the International Space StationIt carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit and made two servicing missionsThe ship’s total in-orbit time is 364 days; and has travelled more than 230m km

The landing at KSC is timed to occur just before midday Florida time (1657 GMT).

Once back on the ground, Discovery will be decommissioned. It is expected to be displayed at the Smithsonian Institution.

Endeavour and Atlantis, Nasa’s other two orbiters, are booked to visit the ISS in the coming months.

When the fleet is no more, the plan is for US astronauts to fly to the space station on Russian Soyuz rockets until perhaps the middle of the decade.

A number of American companies then hope to be in a position to sell launch services to Nasa on a range of new vehicles.

The intention is that the agency should put its efforts into leading the development of a large rocket – known as the Space Launch System – and a sophisticated capsule that can send astronauts beyond the space station to destinations such as asteroids.

Congress has set out the broad capabilities it expects to see in this rocket and has given a deadline of 2016 for its introduction.

However, Nasa has said it cannot deliver such a vehicle in the time and within the budget the politicians have specified.

Space station (Nasa)A parting view: Discovery’s crew took this picture of the ISS as they left to return home

[email protected]

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

‘Seven killed’ in Pakistan blast

At least seven people have been killed and many injured in a blast at a gas station in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad, officials say.

It is not yet clear if the blast was an accident or the result of a militant attack.

Television footage showed extensive damage in the area, with buildings collapsed and burnt-out vehicles.

Officials said casualties could rise as some people were still trapped in the debris.

Some unconfirmed reports said the explosion took place near the offices of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI.

“We heard the explosion from the gas station, the earth moved as in an earthquake, and there was thick smoke all around,” a security guard at the office of Pakistan International Airlines said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

India arrest over ‘illicit money’

indian currencyIndia’s underground economy is estimated to account for 50% of GDP
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Authorities in India have arrested a stud farm owner accused of illegally stashing more than $8bn in Swiss banks.

Hasan Ali Khan was detained in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra. He was later taken to Mumbai.

Officials from India’s Enforcement Directorate carried out multi-city searches at his home and offices.

Last week, the Supreme Court criticised the government for not having the “will power” to act against those illegally funnelling wealth overseas.

The court said the practice was a “pure and simple theft of national money”.

It also asked what the government was doing to retrieve the “black money” being held in foreign banks.

“I am innocent. I haven’t done anything wrong,” Mr Khan told reporters after his arrest on Monday night.

The arrest followed an angry outburst by the Supreme Court last week asking the government why Mr Khan and others were not being taken into custody and questioned.

“What the hell is going on in this country?” the judges asked using unusually strong language for court.

The court set a deadline of 8 March for the government to inform it how it proposed to tackle “black money”.

US-based group Global Financial Integrity estimates that India has lost more than $460bn in such illegal flight of capital since Independence.

It says the illicit outflows have increased after economic reforms began in 1991.

The report says that almost three-quarters of the illegal money that comprises India’s underground economy ends up outside the country.

India’s underground economy has been estimated to account for 50% of the country’s GDP – $640bn at the end of 2008.

Authorities say the government is taking measures to bring back the illegal money, but say there are difficulties in sharing the information because of confidentiality treaties between countries.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

No checks at ‘risky’ workplaces

Protective goggles and glovesThe HSE is proposing to reduce workplace inspections
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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is proposing to reduce unannounced workplace inspections by a third, the BBC has learned.

A leaked letter from the HSE outlines plans to withdraw inspections from entire sectors of industry, including some where “significant risk” remains.

The organisation is facing a 35% cut in its government grant, leading to concerns for workplace safety.

The HSE said no final decision had been made.

HSE inspectors and their counterparts in local authority environmental health departments carry out thousands of visits to business premises each year.

The unannounced “knock on the door” has traditionally formed a key aspect of the HSE’s approach to regulation, and is credited with helping to prevent accidents and reduce the number of workplace deaths, which currently stand at an all-time low.

But in February, chief executive Geoffrey Podger proposed a reduction in what the HSE calls “proactive inspections”. In a letter obtained by the BBC’s File on 4 programme, he outlines plans to reduce HSE inspections by a third.

“The HSE’s job is to make the workplace safe, but now it’s being explicitly instructed not to do that job right”

Professor Rory O’Neill Editor, Hazards magazine

The letter is a blueprint of proposed wide-ranging changes to HSE operations in the light of a 35% cut to its government grant. It recommends a departure from face-to-face contact in favour of web-based and other initiatives.

The letter identifies three high hazard sectors including the nuclear, offshore and chemical industries which will be ring-fenced from the proposed cuts.

It also states that some other industries will still remain subject to unannounced visits, but these are not identified. But the letter also outlines two categories where proactive inspections will be entirely withdrawn from future HSE operations.

In one case this is put down to the “relative cost-effectivenes” of the procedure.

For another, inspections are deemed not “necessary or useful” despite the HSE acknowledging the “significant risk'” posed by the industries under consideration.

The move has caused concern among health and safety campaigners.

Professor Rory O’Neill, editor of the safety magazine Hazards, believes it signals a fundamental departure from the HSE’s role as safety watchdog.

“The HSE’s job is to make the workplace safe, but now it’s being explicitly instructed not to do that job right,” he said.

Listen to the programme

HSE logo

File on 4 is on BBC Radio 4 on 8 March at 2000 GMT and Sunday 13 March at 1700 GMT

Listen again on BBC iPlayer Download the podcast

“The implication for health and safety is that workplaces will become deregulated.”

Dr Courtney Davis of Sussex University reviewed the worldwide evidence for the value of proactive inspections, and believes any reduction is likely to have a detrimental impact on worker safety.

“The most robust studies show that inspection plus enforcement are associated with a decline in injury rates of 22% for the following three years,” she said.

“The evidence relating to new, soft interventions is much weaker, and almost non-existent.

“It doesn’t appear to be the case that these alternatives are effective in improving compliance with health and safety law or injury rates.”

An HSE spokesperson said: “We regularly consult with partner organisations on future ways of working. Discussions do not constitute a final decision so it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time.

“The emphasis should be on outcomes – the incidence of accidents and ill-health – rather than the number of particular types of inputs by the regulator.

“The estimated number of working days lost due to workplace injuries and ill-health is now the lowest it has ever been in Britain.”

File on 4 is on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 8 March at 2000 GMT and Sunday 13 March at 1700 GMT. Listen again via the BBC iPlayer or download the podcast.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.