glasgowLOST
Culture and Sport Glasgow: The Board
The board of Culture and Sport Glasgow, the charity/private trading company which now manages Glasgow's Common Good Assets, comprises 10 directors, only six of whom are elected. The non-elected board members include:
The Right Honourable Norman Somerville Macfarlane, Baron of Bearsden, KT, DL
A regular 'man-of-the-people', MacFarlane was chairman of United Distillers in 1993 when they made over 700 redundancies in Scotland, despite the fact that the company's profits were approaching £1,000,000,000 per year and rising! He is a Tory member of the House of Lords, whose titles have included:
- Director, Edinburgh Fund Managers plc
- Chair, Glasgow Development Agency
- Director, Clydesdale Bank plc
- Director, General Accident Fire & Life Assurance
- Chair, American Trust plc
- Chair, United Distillers UK plc
- Chair, Guinness plc
...McFarlane is the director of some fifty or so companies, the main ones being The Clydesdale Bank, General Accident, The American Trust, Clansman, Edinburgh Fund Managers and United Distillers/Guinness plc. His other companies concentrate on the construction and fitting out of offices from their painting right down to the packaging the furniture comes in, its transportation, and adhesive labels, the lot basically: if you work in an office, go the bank then go for a drink, McFarlane's interests are well served. Politically we can locate him on the Authoritarian Right, he funds British United Industries (a somewhat secretive channel for funding right-wing political projects), and of course the Conservative Party, General Accident alone donates around 50,000 pounds a year.
In the light of this it is clear that McFarlane would readily be attracted by a steering role in an organisation devoted to manipulating the political climate of Glasgow towards the right, and that he would have identified this agenda as one which would in due course enhance his own empire. McFarlane also seemed to have been highly aware of the opportunity the creation of the Glasgow LEC offered in openly manipulating the Labour controlled District Council: and it looks like he achieved everything he set out to do in this respect...
FLUSHING OUT THE SCOTTISH FINANCIAL MAFIA:
The shady Case of the Glasgow Development Agency
by Billy Clark
Sir Angus Grossart
Sir Angus is worth a relatively modest £60 million.
...Sir Angus Grossart, a Scottish merchant banker, sat on the committee that voted through a £2.54m package for four top Royal Bank of Scotland managers. The sum was awarded as a "special bonus" after the bank's £23bn takeover in March 2000 of the NatWest bank [which resulted in 9,000 redundancies].
[One of the recipients of the bonus later commented that "for a top banker a £750,000 bonus was not even enough to buy bragging power in a Soho wine bar".]
Cahal Milmo, The Independent
March 28, 2001
Lord Stevenson of Coddenham
Lord Stevenson is one of the richest men in Scotland.
Lord Stevenson of Coddenham is one of those moneybags who pop up on countless committees, from pop festivals to New Town developments. The sort of banker beloved of Tony Blair, one who appears to know everything about everything and usually doesn't...
In Stevenson's view it appears that hairdressers, for example, would be out of their depth in the Lords. Such a patronising attitude is to be expected from a man who sees his lofty task to "not diminish, but enhance" the stature and work of the Lords...
He has spoken twice in seven years, has not voted for more than four and has turned up for only one debate in three years.
Richard Stott, Sunday Mirror
May 21, 2006
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A boy walks through a public square in 21st Century Glasgow; a place where his Common Good heritage is taken away from him and transferred to a quango of multi-million pound businessmen without any process of public consultation. |
