Nick Pickles’s blog

Today, much of London has been gridlocked by the TUC march.

It’s never a bad thing that people want to engage in our democracy by demonstrating (even where the motivation of many lies in self-interest) but this afternoon’s attack on Fortnum and Mason is quite revealing.

The ’secret target’ mooted during the day was unveiled as F&M’s flagship store on Piccadilly, and it was subsequently occupied by UK Uncut.

Why there? I’m an avid reader of Private Eye and they’ve never been mentioned in the tax avoidance debate. So, what about their owners? Fortunately this isn’t a great corporate conspiracy. It’s all on Wikipedia. Fortnum is owned by Wittington Investments Limited, which in turn is is 79.2% owned by the Garfield Weston Foundation, and 20.8% owned by members of the Weston family.

And what of the Garfield Weston Foundation? Well, it’s actually one of the UK’s largest grant-making trusts.

From it’s 2009 annual report:

“This year, the Trustees have supported 1518 appeals out of a total of 3513 applications, which is a slight increase over last year. While the annual income has remained at a similar level to last year (around £38.5 million) the total cash donations of £37.6 million are lower than last year £41.1 million. This, however, is a reflection of the need for the Trustees’ to be prudent in order to bring their reserves up to a more conservative level following the substantial commitment to Oxford University of £25 million last year towards the development of the Bodleian Library. The figure of £37.6 million includes the second tranche of
£10 million of this grant and the Trustees are committed to pay the final £5 million next year. The Trustees have also been mindful of the possibility of requests for urgent funding being made by charities which have had their funding from other sources cut due to the difficult economic conditions and wished to maintain some temporary reserves to cover such eventuality.”

Additionally, F&M’s managing director, Beverly Aspinall, joined from that other great corporate evil, (sarcasm, by the way) the John Lewis Partnership, where she’d been for 24 years.

So, the demonstrators chose to attack a company with a female MD that has just funded one of Britain’s top libraries, that donated £37.6m to good causes in 2009 alone, and is building up reserves to help charities hit by the spending cuts.

Many have suggested the motives of many in the current protests is nothing to do with politics and everything to do with prejudice. Today, we saw conclusive proof.

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UPDATE: UK Uncut have issued a press release, on the occupation. It’s quite remarkable. Here’s the link to the action:

F&M is owned by Whittington Investments. Whittington also owns a 54% share of Associated British Foods. They allege ABF have dodged over £40 million in tax.

So - hang on - Fortnum and Mason hasn’t actually done anything wrong? Nor has its parent company. ABF has. And the only link is that the two companies have mutual shareholders. But they’re occupying F&M. Indeed, the headline reads “UK Uncut occupy tax dodgers Fortnum and Mason.” - then goes on to describe how they are not.

One ABF owned business is Primark. So, why not occupy Primark? Thankfully, the release includes a quote from Sally Mason, a Uk Uncut supporter from Manchester who is currently occupying Fortnum & Mason. Her quote is quite illuminating, for it includes the line: “Fortnum & Mason is a symbol of wealth and greed. It is where the Royal Family and the super-rich do their weekly shop.”

Yes, they do make expensive things. Including a ‘Royal blend’ tea. Then again, prices of that start at £1.50 - hardly super rich territory.

Given Britain’s monumental budgetary problems, after a decade of political debate that could be summarised as “spending is caring” the fact that a decision to cut £13m from one scheme has dominated the news agenda for the past few days seems ridiculous.

The issue is one about the role of Government, and personal responsibility. The people who teach kids to reads are families and teachers. The people who have the vested interest in lots of people reading (very different to improving literacy) are publishers. So why is it that now Ed Miliband, The Guardian et al seem to think Government should be buying lots of books to give away?

Like many policies which seek to place the state in commanding roles, this is an issue guided by many who believe that responsibility for improving literacy can be abdicated by providing books for free. It’s the same belief that guided the insane policy of providing free laptops to deprived communities, believing all that was needed to bridge the digital divide was to hand out the necessary hardware.

You can’t make obese people lose weight by giving them footballs, you can’t give people the IT skills to use online services by giving them a laptop, and you can’t teach kids to read by giving them books.

Books have always been available for free - at libraries. The question is whether parents want to take their children to them. And correct me if I’m wrong, but the biggest selling childrens book franchise, well, ever was Harry Potter - and was never given away free. Indeed, every time a new Harry Potter book comes out there’s inevitably news stories about the young people lined up outside Waterstones for hours, to get their hands on the (more expensive) hardback edition as soon as possible.

So why has this become a big story? Because there’s no wider narrative about why it’s being cut. The Guardian, Ed Miliband et al have portrayed it as an attack on children/literacy/poverty/the Baby Jesus (ok maybe not the last one) and it’s gained enough traction to secure the PM’s intervention and probably a degree of U-Turn.

Simply, the coalition is failing to argue the case for reducing the size of the state and articulating the need for personal responsibility. BookTrust was self-funding until from 1992 (when it was set up) until 2004. There was no great outcry greeting Tony Blair in 1997 to fund it, so they left it alone for seven years.  Publishers funded the scheme as a way of driving sales in later years. In other words, their marketing activity.

Cutting Government funding will not, as the hysterical Guardian implies, “make it harder for children to read” - it will however make it harder for parents to absolve themselves of any involvement in their childs engagement with reading, and for government to absolve itself of responsibility for falling literacy standards.

The coming year will see many, many more instances like this. If the Coalition doesn’t articulate a wider narrative about the size of the British state, and the fact we can’t afford the largesse of the past decade without massive tax increases, every time a relatively small decision is unpopular with a small but vocal section of society, U-turn will follow U-turn.

Two parties in Government, together reshaping the state was rightly seen by David Cameron and Nick Clegg as the opportunity to be radical and leave a lasting legacy of better public services, greater personal freedom and most importantly low Government debt.

That opportunity will be missed if the public do not believe it is necessary - a feeling only perpetuated by U-turns.