LAPFF Conference 2011: The Continuing Crisis

Another early start on Thursday to get to the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) 16th annual conference in Bournemouth from East London for 9am. LAPFF “exists to promote the investment interests of local authority pension funds, and to maximise their influence as shareholders whilst promoting social responsibility and corporate governance at the companies in which they invest....Formed in 1990....combined assets of over £100 billion”.

It is of course quite ironic that this conference took place less than 24 hours after I had been on a (number of) picket lines in the biggest industrial dispute since 1926 over pensions.

Both of the local government pensions schemes I have an “interest” in are members of LAPFF. This year for the first time I was at the conference as a Councillor rather than as a Staff side representative. Which caused some confusion. I’ll try and post on as many of the excellent presentations and debates as possible. If you are a member of a local authority pension committee or panel in any capacity (and any Party or Union) then this is the conference to come to. It is politically non-partisan which in this context I think is very much a good thing.

Tom Watson MP was to be the opening speaker but his mum has fallen ill so he has had to send his apologies. The Chair of LAPFF Cllr Ian Greenwood and PIRC Tom Powdrill instead did a presentation on “The Hacking Scandal: Lessons for Investors”.  

LAPFF have been trying to remove James Murdock (son of Rupert) as Chair of BSkyB not so much with regard to the appalling behaviour of News of the World reporters etc but concern about his independence and the reputational risk to our investments and what this is doing to shareholder value. For example will OFCOM still consider NewsCorp to be a fit and proper shareholder of BSkyB? If they don’t - what impact will this have to Pension fund investments in BSkyB?

GOTCHA! and News International Wapping - 25 Years On

I could not resist taking this photo of a poster for the latest version of Private Eye.

By coincidence the TUC is hosting a free exhibition on the "News International Wapping - 25 years on" Dispute.

The exhibition is being held in the ground floor lobby of Congress House until 12 August.  See further details here. 

I had a tour yesterday evening with UNISON London convener, Gloria Hanson. 

I will post the pictures on Facebook later.

Update: Pictures here

“They think it’s all over…it is NoW”

This post should have been entitled "Corporate Governance and News Corps" but I could not resist stealing this headline (from Guido - first time for everything in life). Mind you it was a pleasure this morning to go into my local newsagent and see no "News of the World" (NoW) for sale.

Is it just purely coincidental that NoW had a corporate culture that thought hacking into the phone accounts of murdered children and destroying evidence was acceptable journalistic practice when the parent company News Corps had been condemned time and time again for rotten internal governance?

PIRC sent out a report reminding members that News Corp was in the worse 5% of S&P 500 companies for governance. Not least for the connection between BSB Chair (and former CEO) James Mudock and his father.

If you have rotten governance you will have rotten practice. Why have investors (inc. Pension funds) allowed this to happen?

Update: check out the words of wisdom from Tom P here and his post on Myners here.

Boris Johnson and his vile mates in the News of the World

"Over the last few days the horrible truth about the reality of what was going on at the News of the World has been exposed for all to see. There are few words that can describe the hacking of murder and terrorist victims as well as the families of those who died serving our country abroad. 

But I wanted to share a video with you today that I’ve just filmed. Last year Boris Johnson said that the phone hacking allegations were “a song and dance about nothing” and “politically motivated codswallop”. Click here to view

This morning when faced with the allegations he tried desperately to change his tune for ‍ an immediate enquiry”. Yet in April, just three months ago, he made light of the whole thing, saying it is “embarrassing for any self-respecting celeb that they haven’t been hacked”. 

He has shown dire judgement. As Mayor, if he had taken a different approach when this story was first published the whole course of events could have been different. 

I’m asking Boris Johnson a series of questions on my website that I think he has to answer. Click here to view

If you agree please share on twitter and facebook using the hashtag #codswallop.

Best Wishes, Ken"

News of the World: Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

Last night's report that the News of the World is being closed down was welcomed by UNISON Labour Link members arriving in Liverpool for National Forum last night.

I doubt that anyone really believes that the management of this simply dreadful newspaper did not know what was going on.  Hacking into the phone's of murdered children and relatives of dead British soldiers.

I do wonder sometimes why we have so many comics pretending to newspapers and why they are mostly pro-Tories?  Surely their appeal to the lowest common denominator must be connected to their support for the Tories?

Picture Bitterwallet

UPDATE: just sent this message to my MP via 38 degrees.  Do the same here

"Hi Lyn

Find a way to stop the BSkyB deal; Ensure a public enquiry into hacking starts immediately and that it is led by a judge;

Ask Ofcom to investigate whether Murdoch is a fit and proper media owner".