Magazine Issue 5&6 - Winter 1997
The Writing on the Wall

A message from our sponsor - “Almost a year on from Issue One and you, dear reader, are still reading this anarchist rubbish. Corporate Watch? Corporate Botch more like! When are you going to get it? You can carry on supporting this whingeing nonsense but sooner or later you will have to wake up and join the real world, my son. Yes it’s harsh out there and yes, sometimes we have to make hard decisions, but communism doesn’t work. Or hadn’t you noticed? Too busy spreading malicious gossip about hard working pillars of the community, to notice the fall of the Berlin Wall. That was a victory for truth, democracy and above all the free market. Yes it’s a jungle, but yes it works.

Listen, if you had to run a business you’d pretty soon find out that “nice” is a luxury that you can’t afford in commerce. Especially on a profit margin like ours. 6.5% on an annual turnover of only $2.3bn. We’ve got a share price to think about you know. Shareholders too. We can’t afford not to use slave labour. When in Burma...

I really am sick to death of all this carping from people on the very fringes of society. Bloody dole scroungers calling us thieves and scoundrels. Look at the generous donations that we in business make to all kinds of deserving public causes. After the recent media fiasco I’ll be surprised if Bernie Ecclestone ever slips a backhander to a political party again. Takes a struggling new political party, helps it out to the tune of a million quid, and what thanks does he get? All kinds of slander and misrepresentation. Terrible PR. We in business have a right to buy policy decisions, after all its us that have to foot the bill when the politicians screw it up. Everything has a price, that’s the first thing you learn as a businessman. Why should policy be any different?” by Stan Hardy VIP.

The Formula One cash-for-fags affair drags dangerously on. The so-called government having been caught with a bulging brown envelope in its back pocket, the media coverage has taken a curious twist. Now the story seems to have been replaced with endless discussions of spin, public perception has become the issue. It’s not what has actually happened but rather what the public thinks has happened that counts as news.

Poor Mr Blair, sitting pale and fidgety on the front page of the Guardian. Could this be your Watergate looming on the horizon? This cheap little scandal? Dare we speculate that a private corporate interest might buy a policy decision? Or that you won’t publish the list of donations to your party because you have something more to hide? Perhaps public opinion is your very worst nightmare. Or perhaps the withdrawal of corporate support.

Out in the Middle East, Mr Blair has shown every support for his friend Mr Clinton’s efforts to keep the oil price high. Mr Blair is probably influenced by Mr Cook’s ethical foreign policy, when he recognises that the food-for-oil deals threaten the profits of some of the world’s most deserving corporations.

Back in the UK three journalists have just been sent to prison for reporting direct action: a criminal offence if your political stance differs too greatly from that of an ex major general from Portsmouth. Our thoughts go out to Noel Molland, Steve Booth and Saxon Burchnall-Wood of Green Anarchist magazine who are now beginning three year sentences (p. 8). This injustice will not be quickly forgotten, in the alternative media at least. Two defendants remain to be tried, however, and the sentence will be appealed.

Finally it is with amazement that we note that Corporate Watch has made it through to its first birthday and beyond. Not quite able to believe it, we celebrated with a superb benefit gig featuring performances by Atilla the Stockbroker and the incomparable Silas and the Lambs (see p. 16). We would like to thank all our subscribers and benefactors who have given us such tremendous support over the past year. Apologies for being so extraordinarily late with almost everything. So to make up for it we’ve rolled Issues 5 & 6 into one big bumper bargain edition. It also neatly sorts out our production schedule. After a five month hiatus we’ve now completed ‘six’ editions in just over a year. We’re nearly bi-monthly again (on average)! We are still considering whether, with limited time and energy and a great number of other projects to work on, it is realistic for us to be attempting to produce the magazine every two months or on a quarterly schedule.

In our first year we have produced company reports for A30 Action and the Campaign Against Runway Two as well as a major report on the relationship between the oil industry and higher education on behalf of Students for Environmental Action (SEA) and other student groups. We have published a guide to the DBFO road schemes and the Corporate Watchers’ Address Book which is currently messing with heads at the Institute of Directors (p. 34). We have also worked closely with other campaigning and action groups, including the 100 Days of Action Against the Oil Industry, sorted out two conferences and tried to field a vast number of requests. Sorry if we’ve lunched out on you. You wouldn’t believe how chaotic it gets in here sometimes.

By this time next year we promise not to burn out or lunch out quite so often and to try to get something done before a deadline. We hope to be providing more and better information for campaigners and the wider public. We will also soon be getting stuck into a campaign against the ghastly Multilateral Agreement on Investments. We will still need all your support, however.

Love and hugs, Corporate Watch.