Just when you think it’s safe to eat food in a motorway service station again after a high-profile intervention from Heston Blumenthal, the God of Mammon intervenes and reminds you that greed is bad. In particular, the greed that is The Burger Company is especially bad.

Here’s what I got for £8.39:

A double-score of grissle sandwiched between two flat baps with a drizzle of red sauce, plastic cheese and “I can’t believe it’s not” plastic bacon. Oh and a huge bucket of ice.

Yes, it’s expensive renting space in a motorway service station but Byron burger, the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Uncle Tom Cobley rent space in Covent Garden, some of the most expensive real estate on earth. As the excellent burger review site Burgaffair will point out, you can eat an amazing burger in central London for £9 so why not off a slip road on a toll road?

I have a barely-used current account with state-owned bank Natwest. They wrote to me today announcing they are introducing a monthly fee of £6 a month, just for having an overdraft, on top of an interest rate of 19.89% (that’s 40 times what the Bank of England charge Natwest).

The announcement means Natwest are:

Doubling their charges (fees + interest) on an £360 overdraft from £71.61 to £143.60

Increasing the equivalent interest rate on a £500 overdraft from 19.89% to 34.3%.

Note: Natwest took £20 billion of our money in 2008.

If you’re struggling with debts, a debt management plan may help you. One company that provides Debt management is 4debtmanagement.co.uk

I’ve been the Chair of Lewisham’s Audit Panel since 2010 and during that period we’ve done a lot of work to create transparency over how we use interim managers and consultants. Now every single interim consultant and their pay is available for the public to see. Previously, confidentiality agreements meant we needed permission to ask interims whether we could publish their pay online, but over the last two years, their contracts have been updated to stipulate this is a requirement of the council. No publication, no pay.

Political party “Lewisham People Before Profit” has accused the Council of wasting money on consultants.

Instead of actually doing their research and providing a critique of how we use consultants, they have resorted to base populism. The issue is, if you tell the public that the local council is wasting their money, it’s very difficult to then persuade them to support local public services. Lewisham People Not Profit have ended up doing the Tories job for them, resorting to quick sound bites that do little to illuminate a complex issue, but a lot to damage trust in our local Council.

Some of the consultants we use are very expensive indeed. This is not a fact lost on the Audit Panel as we’ve scrutinised the decisions of Officers. But there are projects that simply could not have been delivered without talented external expertise: we would not have rebuilt every secondary school in the borough in the past few years without people who had the experience to deliver projects worth hundreds of millions of pounds. We did not have this experience in house.

So here are the facts:

The number of senior interim posts has fallen from 19 in Jan 2011 to 17 by the end of July last year.

The number of paid consultants has fallen from 24 in Jan 2011 to 11 by the end of July last year.

The next report on this will come to the Audit Panel in the Summer, and again we’ll be asking questions on this and doing the work that People Not Profit simply aren’t.

Item 7 Consultants Audit Report Oct 12 Final Version Nov12 by m8149

On the day of the local elections, the Daily Express front page leads with an “explosive academic study” that the UK will be the West’s most ethnically diverse country after 2050.

Now, I wouldn’t want to accuse the Daily Express of wanting to influence the outcome of today’s elections in favour of, say, a party such as UKIP that has been wolf-whistling on immigration in recent months. However, there are a few points to note about this report:

1. The figures include foreign born migrants, many of whom are white, so when the Express says “ethnically diverse” it is including white people.

2. Err, this explosive academic study was covered by the Daily Telegraph in 2010. That’s right, the Daily Express is reprinting a 3 year old study on the day of the local elections.

3. There are only three quotes in the piece. One by the Prime Minister, one by Professor David Coleman the author of the study, and another by Andrew Green from MigrationWatch. It is not pointed out to Express readers that both Andrew Green and Professor David Coleman are co-founders of MigrationWatch. So one organisation essentially gets two quotes. Hardly balance!

Finally, the eminent Oxford Professor David Coleman’s views on eugenics aren’t pointed out either. Coleman has for a long-time been a member of the Eugenics Society and its successor the Galton Institute.

According to The Guardian:

But Coleman has not yet, for example, responded to David Aaronovitch’s invitation to him to disown the Galton Institute, nor has Coleman told us whether he subscribes to Sir Francis Galton’s definition of eugenics as the “science of improving stock – not only by judicious mating, but whatever tends to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had”, or to Galton’s argument that democracies “must in self-defence withstand the free introduction of degenerate stock”.

You can watch the delightfully archaic ceremony here from 15:33.

The Clerk of the Parliaments

In the ceremony, the name of the Bill is read by The Lord Hill of Oareford, the Leader of the House of Lords, followed by the announcement “La Reyne le veult” (the Queen wills it) which is made by the Clerk of the Parliaments, an official of the House of Lords. With that statement, the Bill has passed through the entire parliamentary process. All that is needed is a commencement order to enact the legislation.

With the Defamation Bill, Nick Clegg’s public unease over the Communications Data Bill and the reform of Section 5 of the Public Order Act it has been a good day for free speech:

Best day for UK free speech ever?1. #Libelreform PASSED2. #Leveson DEAD3. Section 5 Public Order Act REFORMED4. Comms Data Bill DEAD

— Michael Harris (@mjrharris) April 25, 2013

I started speaking to a Chinese man, in his forties, on the tram from the Albert Hall in Brussels to the Eurostar. He was one of the students who organised the protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989. He described to me what happened to his life in the years following the massacre. For seven years, he went in and out of jail, mainly due to minor technical offenses as he continued his friendship with fellow student activists. In 1996, he was placed under house arrest with his wife in a Southern province of China. Under house arrest, he was not allowed to great visitors. Three guards lived outside (and in) his house at all times. He lived constantly under the threat of re-arrest and imprisonment. Eventually, he persuaded the authorities that he should be allowed to work. First, he worked at a market stall selling fish. Soon, his boss sacked him, as the pressure from the local party was too great for him to continue to employ a ‘trouble-maker’. Afterwards, he worked in a supermarket, moving crates. The man told me any work was preferable to staying at home – after all, he had studied for a degree. It was during his long work shifts day-dreaming while moving boxes at the supermarket he decided he had to escape to China. The store had two entrances on different streets. He entered the store one morning as usual and worked his shift. At the end of the day, minutes before the end of his shift, he left via the second entrance onto the other street. At the other side of the crossroads, he could see his jailers patiently waiting for him in their car. He got in a taxi and drove across town to a nearby depot. He tried to stay calm to avoid suspicion. Afterwards, he sat in the back of a transit truck, surrounded by meat carcasses, heading south towards Hong Kong.

He did not say what had happened to his wife, though he told me he still communicates with his family via Skype – it’s the only way he gets to see his loved ones. Before the truck got to Hong Kong a friend set him up in a safe house, next to the border. It was May 1997, six weeks before the formal handover to China. This week, the right suffered a collective memory loss over Thatcher’s handover of Hong Kong, the last outpost of democracy surrounded by a sea of authoritarianism. All dissidents at the time knew there was one street that crossed the Hong Kong / China border, near the Lo Wu border crossing in Shenzhen. This street did not have a formal border crossing, instead a pair of guards walked from one side of the street to the other. At night, the man, fearing for his life waited until one of the guards went in to get a drink before he made a dash for freedom. The guards chased him into Hong Kong. Darting through the streets he made it into a police station and claimed asylum. Weeks later this would have been impossible. Now, he lives in London and helps connect Chinese dissidents. His story is not fantastical by Chinese standards, he told his account entirely in a measured tone. That such bravery is so commonplace in China is a measure of the degeneration of the state’s social contract with its people.

My letter to the Guardian is available online here.

The Russian authorities have not only targeted foreign NGOs (Report, 28 March), but also domestic human rights groups, includingMemorial, which received the Index on Censorship 40th Anniversary award last year for its courageous research into the crimes of the Soviet regime. Other groups targeted include theMoscow Helsinki Group, the oldest Russian human rights NGO. Russia should comply with its international commitments and uphold freedom of expression, assembly and association – and stop these raids. The EU and its member states should take action in accordance with the EU commitment to support and protect civil society, and human rights activists. The situation in Russia is in decline. Index joins an appeal by our partners in the Civic Solidarity Platform, a coalition of 50 human rights NGOs from around the OSCE, that urgent action must be taken now to prevent the situation for human rights activists on the ground in Russia getting worse.

Mike Harris
Head of advocacy, Index on Censorship

Yesterday I wrote about the return of private daily newspaper to Burma on Index on Censorship:

1 April heralded the return of private daily newspaper to the streets of Burma. Since the 1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Act the state has held highly restrictive powers to license newspapers and publishers creating one of the most hostile environments on earth for a free print media. Since the transition period, the new President Thein Sein has signalled that the government would liberalise restrictions on the media. Prior to the return of daily newspapers, privately-owned weekly journals had begun to flourish as demand for independent news markedly increased. On 1 February this year, the government launched the process to allow the independent media to bid for daily licenses.

Reaction in China to the relaxation of Burma’s highly restrictive media laws was pointed according to the Want China Times:

Some internet users have expressed their envy with coded comments such as “although we cannot eat it yet, at least we can smell it,” while others suggested such media freedom is not suited to China’s current circumstances. “Myanmar has stepped on the road toward democracy and freedom. Will China have its day? Let us wait and see,” an internet user said. And, “Myanmar’s achievement was earned by opposition forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi. China has not reached this stage,” another stated.

It’s a strange idea that China must earn her democracy.

In recent years, there has been a serious problem with street drinking in the Hither Green Lane area. Many local residents (unfairly, in my view) have associated this problem with the residents of St Mungo’s homeless hostel which has worked hard to tackle this problem. What is clear is that extending licenses in this area would exacerbate the problem. So it’s extremely galling to see ethical food trader, the Co-op (Hither Green Green Lane, SE13 6QH) apply to extend its license to sell alcohol at 7.30am in the morning.

Unfortunately it is too late to place an objection. The hearing at Lewisham Council is on the 17th April at 7.15pm and has been moved because of resident representations. Members of the public are welcome to attend but are not allowed to address the committee. To attend please fill in this form quoting reference PL0250.

I will be speaking to my fellow councillors on the committee as a matter of urgency.

Councillor Mike Harris, one of 3 Labour councillors for Lewisham Central said:

“It is beyond belief that the Co-operative, an ethical retailer, wants to sell alcohol at 7.30 am in an area next to a homeless hostel. Hither Green Lane already has a problem with street drinkers which we’re working hard to tackle. Selling alcohol earlier will only make matters worse. I hope they will withdraw this application before the 17 April.”

Blogger Jacqui Thompson is now £25,000 poorer after losing a libel action against the chief executive of Carmarthenshire county council, Mark James. The judge found the posts on her Carmarthenshire Planning Problems blog to be defamatory and that she was engaged in an “unlawful campaign of harassment, defamation and intimidation targeted against Mr James and other council officers”.

Yet while Thompson paid for the case out of her own pocket, the ratepayers of Carmarthenshire paid for the chief executive’s libel action. In these straitened times, is it really fair that taxpayer’s money is being used to fund a libel case?

Carmarthenshire council is not alone. South Tyneside council is paying for its chief executive and council leader to bring proceedings against one of its own councillors. In South London the Durand Academy, a primary school, has on multiple occasions funded libel claims. This is a live debate with the government’s Defamation Bill (the first wholesale reform of our archaic libel law since 1843 ) currently passing through parliament after a long fight by the Libel Reform Campaign. An amendment tabled in the House of Lords by the Labour party, with support from influential Tory Peer Lord McWhinney and Liberal Democrat Peer Anthony Lester will (if passed by the Commons) block corporations and public bodies from suing individuals for libel, unless the libel has caused “substantial financial harm”. However an important loophole remains.

Public bodies themselves cannot sue for defamation. Derbyshire county council vs. Times Newspapers Ltd (1993) rules out public bodies from suing for libel. Lord Keith’s judgement makes clear the importance of “uninhibited public criticism” of democratically elected and public bodies.

The remaining loophole is the judgement does not prevent public bodies from using taxpayer’s money to fund libel actions on behalf of their staff.

In the Carmarthenshire case, Mr Justice Tugendhat reiterated the importance of the bar on public bodies suing directly, and emphasised the greater latitude members of the public had in criticising public bodies, but did not believe that allowing councillors or officers of a local authority to sue for libel would infringe the right to freedom of expression. “The decision of the House of Lords is binding on me. But in my judgment there is nothing in the suggestion that it is contrary to Art 10 that a member or between officer of a local authority should be able to sue for libel,” he said.

He also refused to restrict the ability of public bodies to use taxpayer’s money to pay for libel actions on behalf of their employees saying that such indemnities needed to be challenged: “There are procedures by which the grant of an indemnity by a council to an employee in respect of the costs of litigation can be challenged.”

Yet the procedures to challenge are complex and only relate to whether the local authority is funding the libel action to circumvent the Derbyshire principle. The default position in law established by Mr Justice Sullivan in Comninos vs Bedford borough council is that councils can fund libel actions on behalf of their staff – unless challenged. Local bloggers can now find themselves sued by a council employee backed with the full financial weight of the local authority, and yet will only know whether this is legal or not if they challenge this funding separately. It’s hard to see how any blogger or citizen critic could fund such a challenge unless they have very deep pockets indeed.

These indemnities have a corrosive effect on local democracy. Local authorities, sensing the controversy over using taxpayers’ money to sue their own citizens, are not transparent about the costs of these claims.

I tabled a freedom of information request to Carmarthenshire to find out how much it had spent on the libel action. It refused to disclose this information, citing an exemption. From a wider request, I did find out that the council spent £891,433 in legal fees in 2012. This is the same county council that is making 450 people redundant and closing down training services for disabled people.

The defamation bill will continue the bar on public authorities directly suing their critics for defamation. Yet, without action to stop them directly funding libel actions on behalf of councillors or officers, the power and resources of the state can still be used to silence citizen critics.

It is self-evident that public servants should be able to sue for defamation if directly and unfairly criticised, but it is not fair to expect taxpayers in this period of austerity to pick up the bill.

This article was originally published on the Guardian Local Government Network on 2 April 2013.