LUKE ACTON'S WRITING

I'm Luke Acton, this is my writing. [email protected]

[lukeactonwriting]

'I'm in fear of my life': Terminally ill Dagenham woman stuck in flat as council struggles to provide accessible homes

A council tenant stuck in an 11th floor flat is fearing for her life as her debilitating illness makes it harder and harder to live independently.

As the council struggles to provide enough social homes for the borough, a letter from the authority shows at least a dozen of its most vulnerable residents face an "extensive wait" for accessible homes.

Jackie Dawes, 57, has lived in her Dagenham home for 22 years with her husband Paul Laegas.

She was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in May, a life-changing and terminal illness. Her flat, which isn't disability accessible, is becoming increasingly unfit as the disease takes more and more of her ability to move.

Jackie's ability to even get out of the flat is in the hands of a temperamental lift that shuts down whenever there's a fire alarm. False alarms are frequent, according to Jackie.

"I'm in fear for my life," she said. "I'm truly petrified of a fire.

"My main concern is a medical emergency. If I have a fall and the lifts are out, how are the paramedics going to get up 11 flights of stairs and how are they going to get me out if they need a stretcher?"

Jackie Dawes' building. She lives on the 11th floor. With temperamental lifts, she's afraid of what will happen if there's a fire or she has a medical emergency. Her condition means getting down the stairs is a daunting prospect, and as she gets worse it will become impossible. Picture: Luke Acton.

Motor neurone disease is a rare condition that progressively takes away a person's ability to move and is always fatal.

A third of MND sufferers die within a year, and half within two years, according to a spokesman for the MND Association, a charity dedicated to the disease.

Jackie has lost the use of her right arm and is now dependent on a wheelchair when she leaves the flat. That wheelchair doesn't even fit through the door to the toilet.

A letter from a council manager about Jackie's situation on August 28 said chronically ill and disabled residents face an "extensive wait for a housing solution".

He expected that would be the case unless "significant" funds and resources were committed to the problem. With the financial pressures the council is under, he finished, that's a difficult challenge to take up.

An authority occupational therapist assessed Jackie needs a two-bed, ground floor flat with an accessible bathroom. She has been rated the highest priority of Additional Preference. As of the letter's date in late August, 15 people needed the same thing.

This problem isn't just in Barking and Dagenham. The housing system at large isn't fit for cases like Jackie's, according to the MNDA.

"The system is very, very slow, especially in the context of how fast MND progresses," said MNDA policy manager Alex Massey.

"A condition like MND really shows the gaps in statutory services, because they just do not keep up with needs."

Only 7 per cent of England's homes are disabled accessible, according to a 2017 housing association report. There just aren't enough to go around.

The MNDA wants the government to introduce legislation that mandates a certain proportion of new homes to be disabled accessible. In the meantime, Jackie is living with the system now.

"The sad part of this illness is, everything else goes, but your marbles don't. They stay," she said.

"I can still think and be totally aware of everything when it's going on, even in the late stages. I just won't be able to do anything about it."

All she wants to be able to do with the time left to her is be able to sit in a garden outside her home.

The family are due to meet with the council about Jackie's needs, but a date has not been set.

A council spokesman said: "Barking and Dagenham, like councils across London, faces a significant shortage of adapted and adaptable housing stock to meet the needs of these residents.

"We are working to increase the housing options to meet this demand, but options around developing new homes and adapting existing housing stock are both lengthy when we have residents like this who need accommodation urgently."

The Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government has been contacted for comment.

[lukeactonwriting]

Mums protest at Newham University Hospital over maternity care

Dozens of mums have gathered outside Newham University Hospital to protest the level of care at its ward for the sickest newborns.

The demonstration on Friday followed a small Twitter storm over the use of screens to hide breastfeeding mothers and feeding babies formula without the mother’s consent at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Sian Murray Huynh, who helped organise the group, said: “Right now, it feels like their biggest concern is just to get us to be quiet and stop protesting, stop making noise.”

Barts Health, the trust that runs the hospital, denies that there is any policy to forcibly screen breastfeeding women.

A spokeswoman said that, when screens are used, it is because the mother wants them.

Mothers have said that the screens are claustrophobic, can prevent nurses from seeing when mothers need help and that they create a stigma around breastfeeding.

It is illegal to prevent or obstruct a woman trying to breastfeed in public — including a hospital.

The problems at the unit came to the fore after a meeting with two mums who experienced the treatment at the NICU with trust staff. The mums at the meeting, Karis White and Carolyn Hounsell, were told the screens are there because of a man in the past complaining about seeing breastfeeding.

Mums protested outside Newham Hospital to oppose the use of screens to hide mums breastfeeding in the neonatal intensive care unit among other issues with the ward. Picture: Luke Acton.

The two shared their experiences with a WhatsApps group of 256 Newham mothers.

“As we started sharing on the group, lots mothers have either had similar issues or others issues with a lack of compassionate care,” said Karis.

She gave birth to her second child, Percy, August last year. He was in the NICU for 24 hours for an issue with blood incompatibility.

“I think that’s one of the reason’s why it’s united everybody, because this is about rights, our right to feed our baby how we want (with our breasts or not) and where we want, especially in hospital.”

Bianca Parish deeply wanted to breastfeed her baby Judah, who is now 13-months-old.

He was in the NICU with a lung infection after being born 17 weeks premature. He still has tubes for oxygen.

“I came in one day to find they had bottle-fed him without my consent, which was really discouraging when you’re trying to breastfeed and it’s hard work because your baby’s on oxygen,” she said.

“We were also told later on that if we wanted him to come home then we should bottle-feed him, so it was quite manipulative.

“You want your baby to come home, that’s the ultimate goal.”

It’s an event the Plaistow mother is still trying to process. Tears rolled down her face as she spoke about the experience.

But Bianca has sympathy for the nurses, who have been stretched by widespread NHS cuts.

“They have a really difficult job,” she said. “But it’s not their choice. It’s the mother’s choice.

“To take that out of the mother's hands and make that choice for her is unacceptable even if they don’t have the resources, even if they’re stretched, even if it’s the easier option. Newham Hospital robbed me of my choice.”

It’s a question of the extra bond she and her baby could have had if she had breastfed. Despite this experience, Bianca is grateful to the staff there.

“The team that surrounded me at my labour were incredible. They fought so hard to save Judah’s life and I’m forever grateful to them here at Newham for that.”

Pooney Sekar, divisional manager of Women’s and Children’s Health at Newham Hospital said: “We know the vital benefits of breastfeeding and will always support and encourage women who wish to breastfeed their babies.

“Our midwives and neonatal team are absolutely committed to the baby-friendly initiative and share the same goals in supporting women with their choices.

“There are, in some circumstances, clinical reasons to offer formula feed in addition to breast milk, however, this follows discussions with the neonatal team and with the consent of the mother. Following suggestions and feedback from parents, we will ensure that there is clearer signage and relevant information shared about their baby’s feeding requirements.”

[lukeactonwriting]

NHS staff face growing violence in east London's hospitals

The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Picture: Barts NHS Trust.

Violence against staff at east London hospitals is on the rise, new figures reveal.

There were 331 assaults against staff at the five Barts Health hospitals from April 2018 to March 2019 - 60 per cent more than the 12 months from April 2015, which saw only 206.

This April to June has been the most violent over the past five years, with 98 recorded assaults. In 2018 there were 84 over the same period and only 50 during that period in 2017.

The figures, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by this paper, revealed that Newham Hospital has seen 231 assaults since April 2015, Mile End saw 22 and St Bartholomew's saw 89.

By far the worst hospital in the five-year period for assaults was the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. It had 504 incidents.

That's almost double the amount seen at the next worse hospital, Whipps Cross in Waltham Forest, which had 258 assaults.

The Royal London is easily the biggest hospital, with 845 beds at the end of 2018, according to Barts Health FoI data. Whipps Cross had 679.

A Barts Health spokeswoman said abusive or violent behaviour will not be tolerated, adding that staff safety is a top priority.

Training is available to them, focusing on identifying aggressive behaviour, personal safety, de-escalation and conflict resolution.

The spokeswoman said security personnel are at all five hospitals 24 hours a day and support is available to staff if they face violence or aggression.

"Our staff deserve to be treated with respect, and patients or visitors who behave violently or aggressively may be issued with a formal warning," she said.

"If the behaviour continues, the trust will actively seek criminal or civil proceedings."

Barts Health is one of the largest NHS trusts in England, with 16,000 staff, operating five hospitals and providing care for 2.5 million people in Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest and the City of London.

Violence against NHS staff is a national issue, with former health secretary Matt Hancock trying to address it last year with the first-ever NHS violence reduction strategy.

It included working with prosecutors to speed up the trial process and having health watchdog the Care Quality Commission look at violence in their inspections.

[lukeactonwriting]

Two dead after 'fundamental weaknesses' in council's alarm system for vulnerable people

Newham’s town hall in East Ham. Picture: Ken Mears.

Two people have died because of failings in Newham's Telecare service, which provides alarms to the disabled, elderly and other vulnerable people.

The historic cases were brought to light in an audit of the Newham Network Telecare Services (NNTS).

In July 2017 a person died despite setting off their alarm. After one operator put them on hold, another accidentally deleted the call. They were found dead two hours later.

Two members of staff were sacked after an investigation the same year.

In a second incident in February 2018, someone from the service went to perform a welfare visit for a service user in distress.

They arrived at the home and called an ambulance, but left on another call before the emergency services arrived.

By the time paramedics arrived, the person who relied on the alarm was dead.

Friends or relatives are usually called on to attend the calls from Telecare alarms. NNTS staff only attend when there is no-one else to check on them.

While a procedure for waiting calls has been developed to prevent the first incident from happening again, the report said there was no record of any policy to prevent the second.

However the audit was undertaken from April to August 2018, and a council spokeswoman said that procedures have since changed.

The audit also criticised the overall performance and management of the service.

The NNTS has a target to answer calls within 60 seconds. At the time of the audit, that target hadn't been met since September 2017.

Of the three senior posts within the service, two were vacant and a sample rota seen by the auditors in mid-2018 showed there weren't enough staff to cover some shifts.

In response to the problems, NNTS has reinstated its call quality monitoring as of January this year. People working the phones are met one-to-one to review their performance.

A review of the service is also due to be undertaken by the new head of independent living, who joined in February 2019.

A Newham Council spokeswoman said: “We deeply regret the death of any user of council services.

“Thorough investigations were undertaken after both incidents. Lessons have been learnt and action taken as part of our ongoing improvement plan for Newham Network, which has been in place since August 2018.”

She added that the service has changed 'significantly' since the audit after putting an improvement plan into effect.

[lukeactonwriting]

Biomass industry defends position as renewable fuel ahead of RED II

A new study from MIT adds to growing criticism of biomass energy ahead of RED II decision.

The European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) and the US Industrial Pellet Association (USIPA) have both taken out editorial space to make their case for biomass before the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) is finalised.

In a new study slated to be published in Environmental Research Letters on 19 January, researchers from the MIT Sloan School of Management, the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Climate Interactive, have found that burning biomass emits more CO2 per kilowatt hour than coal. The authors of the paper said the increased emissions stem from wood’s less efficient combustion and that biomass’ supply chain and processing are more demanding than those of coal. To pay off this ‘carbon debt’ through the absorption of CO2 by respiring trees, the researchers estimated that it would take 44 to 104 years of forest growth, depending on the type of tree.

The study uses an interactive model (available here, an IPCC review of it is available here) to predict the effectiveness of climate and energy policy.

MIT Professor and lead researcher for the study, John Sterman, said in a statement, “A molecule of CO2 emitted today has the same impact on the climate whether it comes from coal or biomass. Declaring that biofuels are carbon neutral, as the EU, UK and others have done, erroneously assumes forest regrowth happens quickly and fully offsets the emissions from biofuel production and combustion. One way to address the challenges raised in this study would be to count emissions where they occur, for example, at a power plant, and monitor and count carbon removed from the atmosphere by regrowth on the harvested land.”

Prof. Rooney-Varga, another author of the study, said: "We’re seeing many of the countries, states, and even institutions leading on climate embracing bioenergy from wood because they think it is ‘carbon neutral.’ Our analysis shows that these good intentions may be leading to outcomes that are bad for the climate: net carbon emissions that are worse than coal for many decades and, potentially, for the rest of this century or more”.

This research adds to the increasing debate over biomass’s place in the European energy market, with fuel imports for biomass plants primarily coming from the US. On 15 January, the USIPA took out sponsored content in POLITICO.eu defending the EU’s use of biomass and the US’ supply of the fuel. The piece presented a face for the industry, Randy: “one of a new generation of lifelong U.S. foresters committed to using sustainable methods to provide Europe with renewable energy.” Combined with embedded videos from Drax, the largest burner of biomass in the UK (and who the MIT study explicitly singles out), the article represents a consolidated effort to sway opinion towards biomass.

12 January, AEBIOM General Secretary Jean-Marc Jossart wrote an op-ed in EU policy website EURACTIV.com only days after the forestry activists FERN produced a report condemning biomass for its effects on health.

Benedict McAleenan, head of Biomass UK (a representative of about 200 companies in the biomass supply chain), commented on the new research: “It’s vitally important to understand how economics and science work together in the real world. In this study, there are highly unlikely scenarios being modelled, which results in worst-case conclusions.” He added: “Responsible biomass sourcing is driven by a market that incentivises best use of forest materials. It works as a hierarchy, with bioenergy at the bottom. This study unfortunately doesn’t model that accurately and jumps to the worst possible outcomes.”

Countering claims that biomass will lead to deforestation, McAleenan said that both southern US and EU forests have increased their inventories over the past 50 years and 25 years respectively. He also concurred with what the USPIA said in POLITICO: sustainable management and harvesting of forests ensures that they remain forests.

Drax CEO Andy Koss agreed with McAleenan in his criticism of the research’s methods, and added: “Since Drax upgraded half of the power station to use biomass, those generating units deliver carbon savings of more than 80% compared to when they used coal. This takes account of our supply chain and is an independently audited figure.” This statistic comes from Ofgem’s Solid and Gaseous Biomass Carbon Calculator.

Both men emphasised the need to keep biomass as an essential feedstock for energy production.

In response to the criticism, Professor Sterman said: “We examined a wide range of scenarios in our study, including scenarios in which biomass is sourced from thinning.  Thinning is less damaging to the climate than clear-cutting, but still leads to significant initial increases in net CO2 emissions because regrowth takes time even if a stand of trees is thinned rather than clear cut.”

He went on to defend other aspects of the study’s methodology, saying that the research assumed the best case scenario for commercial forest regrowth, as well as not accounting for the possible lowering of coal prices due to the lack of demand from the EU, stimulating coal use elsewhere. Professor Sterman encouraged “a meaningful price on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions—no matter where and how they arise”.

“The EU has declared biofuels to be carbon neutral, which assumes that regrowth is certain and rapid.  Neither is true for wood.  Asserting by administrative fiat that biofuels are carbon neutral does not make it so, and, worse, encourages policies that may actually worsen climate change.  Proper emissions accounting would count the emissions from all sources of energy, whether coal, gas, solar or wood.  And for wood and other biofuels, offsetting reductions in atmospheric CO2 would be credited only when and if there is net new growth on the lands harvested to supply the biomass.”

This article was updated 9:30 18/01/2018 with comments from Professor John Sternam defending the methodology of the academic paper 'Does replacing coal with wood lower CO2 emissions? Dynamic lifecycle analysis of wood bioenergy'.

Originally published on Bioenergy Insight. 

[lukeactonwriting]

Advanced Biofuels Association asks court to review RFS waivers

The Advanced Biofuels Association (ABFA) has asked the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC to decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke the law by granting Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) waivers to an increasing number of small refineries.

The petition specifically called for a review of the EPA’s “decision to modify the criteria or lower the threshold by which the Agency determines whether to grant small refineries an exemption” from the RFS.

The waivers are meant to protect small refineries (facilities producing less than 75,000 barrels of oil per day) from ‘disproportionate economic hardship’. These refineries are often sometimes owned by large oil companies; waivers granted to refineries owned by the large oil companies Andeavor and CVR Energyhave prompted the ethanol industry to censure the practice.

“We have seen reports that the number of small refinery exemptions recently granted for compliance years 2016 and 2017 have doubled compared to previous years,” said Michael McAdams, president of ABFA. “ABFA members are concerned that Administrator Pruitt is granting these exemptions in an arbitrary and capricious manner to undisclosed parties behind closed doors with no accountability for its decision-making process.”

“The news reports about these exemptions have had immediate and significant market impacts on the prices of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) for the biomass-based diesel (D4) and overall renewable fuel (D6) pools,” continued McAdams. “Dropping RIN prices disincentivise blending, causing economic harm to ABFA’s members and posing a threat to the integrity of the RFS program at large.”

On 12 April, thirteen Senators wrote to Pruitt asking him to cease issuing any refinery waivers and make public all refineries that have received a waiver in the last three years. It also requested that Pruitt report to Congress within two weeks of the letter to justify the waivers and confirm whether or not the blending volumes were redistributed to other refiners.

The industry and its representatives in Congress have been pushing for the year-round sale of E15 while attacking these waivers. The 15% blend of ethanol with gasoline is restricted in the US during summer months to reduce ozone emissions. The industry argues that the regulations are outdated and that their repeal would be a boon to agricultural communities and provide greater choice to consumers.

Originally published by Biofuels International.

[lukeactonwriting]

Tax to fund oil spill clean-up expires

Fluid Handling International reported at the end of last year that the tax supplying the Coast Guard-administered fund was about to expire. It has now expired and is accompanied by a broad liberalisation of drilling regulations.

Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund was maintained with a $0.09 per-barrel tax, but this has now expired. The balance of the fund is estimated to be at $5.7 billion, with at least $225 million spent in disbursements over $250,000 alone.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has proposed expanding the scope of domestic drilling and scaling-back safety regulations.

Last year, President Trump’s 28 April executive order directed that “It shall be the policy of the United States to encourage energy exploration and production, including on the Outer Continental Shelf,” citing leadership in global energy production and energy security as the rationale. This statement added that the government should ensure that “such activity is safe and environmentally responsible”.

The executive order has been followed by The Department of the Interior’s (DoI) Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement introducing a proposed rule that would release oil companies from their obligation to get critical safety and anti-pollution measures vetted by an independent third party. The rule is currently open to comments from the public, which ends at the end of January.

4 January this year the DoI published a report outlining a five-year lease programme for drilling operations on the outer continental shelf.

However, the Los Angeles Times has pointed to problems with the President’s proposals: uncertainty about oil prices discouraging additional drilling, states’ ability to obstruct possible leasing for offshore operations, and widespread local opposition to new oil operations being a few.

The plan has also met resistance on the east coast. After proposing the plan for expanded OCS drilling, Secretary for the Interior, Ryan Zinke said that oil operations would not be expanding in Florida, after opposition from Republican Governor, Rick Scott.

Commenting on a meeting with the Governor, Zinke said: “I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

Speaking to the Associated Press, Democratic Senator for Florida, Bill Nelson doubted the sincerity of the meeting, calling it “a political stunt”, adding that “We shouldn’t be playing politics with the future of Florida.”

Still, environmentalists have condemned the Trump administration’s position. Athan Manuel, Director of the Sierra Club’s lands protection programme said: “By gutting spill response funds at the same time the Trump administration is attempting to dramatically expand offshore drilling off America’s coasts and weakening safety regulations, Congressional Republicans are creating a catastrophe waiting to happen along our coasts”.

In a 4 January press release, the American Petroleum Institute (API) applauded the government’s position. “This new offshore leasing plan is an important step towards harnessing our nation’s energy potential for the benefit of American energy consumers,” said API Upstream Director Erik Milito in a statement. “The ability to safely and responsibly access and explore our resources in the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico is a critical part of advancing the long-term energy security of the US”

Updated 10:45, 10/01/2018: original story incorrectly stated that the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program was released by the DoI 6 January, it was corrected to 4 January. Florida’s removal from the expanded OCS drilling plan was also added.

Originally published in Fluid Handling International.

[lukeactonwriting]

Lewisham Council votes against proportional representation

Source: Greater London Authority report on May 22, 2014 elections.

The first-past-the-post system creates significant disparity between the popular vote and the composition of local government. The proposed system was a viable alternative.

Thursday 22nd November, members of the council voted 21-20 against petitioning the government to change the electoral system in Lewisham. The motion was put forward by Green Party Councillor John Coughlin, who said in a statement before the vote: ‘I believe we should trust the people of Lewisham to elect the representatives they want no matter which party they belong to. How the people of Lewisham vote should be reflected in their councillors’ (Coughlin had not responded to a request to interview at the time of writing). The 2014 borough elections saw Labour poll at 43.1% according to numbers published by the Greater London Authority (GLA), but gained 98.1% of seats, 53 out of 54. John Coughlin is currently the only opposition councillor.

The situation is similar in neighbouring Greenwich, where Labour controls 84.3% of seats, having received only 43.2% of the vote.

Had the motion passed, it would be up to the government to implement the changes requested. A similar motion passed in 2002, but was not addressed by the Blair ministry. This recent push is the newest attempt to reform local elections and break a party dominance that is arguably not mandated by the composition of voters.

The motion called for the identification of ‘the most appropriate proportional voting system for the election of councillors in the Borough of Lewisham’ and recognition that ‘proportional representation is the optimum expression of the legitimate democratic wishes of the people of Lewisham’.

A variant of proportional representation is used to elect Associate Members to the Greater London Authority, who hold the Mayor of London accountable.

Instead of voting for a direct representative, PR emphasises the mirroring of government’s political make-up with that of the electorate.

Proponents of first-past-the-post (FPTP) highlight the benefits of people directly voting for their representatives. In PR, parties are allocated seats in terms of how many votes they get and then they choose the candidate who fills it. This makes no difference when councillors are following party lines, but matter hugely in free votes, where personal politics can make the difference. It is a question of prioritising a direct representative or a plurality of opinions in local government.

The chief whip for Labour in Lewisham, Councillor Jim Mallory, led opposition to the motion and said that FPTP enables the formation of strong governments.

“It’s quite possible that the Labour government would have never been able to implement the National Health Service without a majority...”

The narrow margin of the decision is notable in a council so dominated by one party, with Councillors noting the fierceness of the debate. Whether or not this discussion continues is yet to been seen. With numbers as divided as they are, it should.

[lukeactonwriting]

DOJ national security advisor moves to private practice

Miller & Chevalier has taken on Brian Fleming, the former counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security at the US Department of Justice.

Fleming, 39, joined the firm on 11 September and will handle export controls and economic sanctions, foreign direct investment, cybersecurity and whitecollar defence matters, according to a firm press release.

During his time as counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security from 2015-2017, Fleming helped oversee export control and sanctions prosecutions and investigations, as well as managed the review of transactions before the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Fleming worked on multiple cybersecurity cases, including the indictment of seven Iranian hackers for allegedly conducting cyberattacks against the US financial sector between 2011 and 2013. The men are believed to have worked for bodies associated with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and were charged in absentia of computer hacking. All seven are still wanted by the FBI. Talking about the importance of the case, Fleming said that the charges sent a strong message of deterrence to the parties involved and that the US government was going to be taking these cases seriously.

Commenting on his time at the DOJ, Fleming said: "It was really rewarding to be working on some of the most important matters that we face as a government."

"Whenever you're talking about working on matters that touch upon national security and that span across international borders, there's obviously a level of complexity that needs to be addressed and managed."

Prior to his time as counsel to the National Security Division's assistant attorney general, Fleming was a trial attorney in the division's counterintelligence and export control section from 2013-2015. There he worked on cases relating to export control and economic espionage, unauthorised disclosures of classified information, cyber intrusions and economic sanctions violations.

Speaking about the challenges of handling national security cases, Fleming said: "Many of the cases that I worked on at the National Security Division had foreign policy implications for the United States, so one thing that came up time and again was trying to work across government agencies to make sure that we were well coordinated and that we were all [moving towards] a unified goal in terms of our enforcement and policy goals."

Kathryn Cameron Atkinson, chair of Miller & Chevalier's international department said in the firm's press release: "Brian has first-hand insight into the rapidly evolving policy and enforcement approach to national security, export controls, and sanctions issues."

Now in private practice, Fleming is focused on the effect that US President Donald Trump's administration may have on clients. Fleming said that lawyers need to keep eyes and ears open: "The new [Trump] administration is keeping everybody on their toes… What are the new priorities? What do we need to be concerned about? How do we need to be translating that to assist clients and stay ahead?"

This article was written for Global Investigations Review.

[lukeactonwriting]

Banks and art

Insight Investment, a subsidiary of BNY Mellon and the third largest manager of wealth in the UK, has sponsored the Royal Academy of Art’s Summer Exhibition for over a decade. They don’t do this for the art, something made clear by their fiduciary duty. Instead, it is for a mix of image-maintenance and the status (social and cultural) that art institutions afford. Deals like these allow the RA to exist, as well as provide one of the last free educations in art in Britain. Here is the acceptance of greater access to art for these corporate elites and an enabling of their consumption of it. For an exhibition that is supposed to expose the fine art world to a wider degree of participation, exclusivity like this stings.

The RA receives no government funding (except for sporadic grants from the Arts Council) and so is wholly reliant on their own ability to subsist from merchandise and membership fees and private funding. This funding coming in the form of donation and corporate sponsorship.

Sponsorship of cultural institutions differs from regular endorsement. It not only increases brand visibility, but its legitimacy by being seen with an institution committed to public service. The added weight that those institutions carry in society can aid a company in their visibility, but also their ‘social license’: the ability to conduct business without the censure or at least the acceptance of the general public.  

This rationale for sponsorship was confirmed in a decision by the Information Tribunal in 2014 concerning BP’s sponsorship of Tate Modern:

‘We accept […] evidence that arts sponsorship can legitimately be understood as a means of maintaining BP’s ‘social licence’ to operate and of enhancing, maintaining or repairing BP’s brand’

Companies who are most subject to criticism, like BP, struggle more to conduct business without intense censure. Associating themselves with more wholesome entities like Tate is an attempt to address this. However, BP had to withdraw their sponsorship in the midst of critical activism. BP cited an ‘extremely challenging business environment’, as oil prices remained low. However BP still sponsors a number of cultural institutions, including the National Gallery and the British Museum, neither of which have had the same intense scrutiny as their sponsorship of Tate.

Aside from their image-cleaning properties, these institutions have other attractions. Companies like Insight Investment are interested in the cultural status that it affords them. Like all banks post-2007, Insight has a poor reputation with the public, but unlike BP, they aren’t always under fire, just amoral. In PR they aren’t treading water, but flexing.

What rules out a genuine interest in the arts is its fiduciary duty. This is the promise to prioritise a set of interests above others. In the case of publicly traded companies like BNY Mellon, this duty is to itself and then to its stockholders. Insight’s statement that they ‘are honoured to play a role in [the Summer Exhibition’s] enduring success’ is a screen for that fact that they have reasons other than a love of art to give the Royal Academy money: a place that they and their clients can meet (Insight Investment pays for the opening party of the Summer Exhibition), as well as their name associated with that of one of the oldest artistic institutions in the world.

Here, the relationship is clear: it is a transaction, something that may not be ideal for the arts in general, but is necessary for the existence of private but important institutions like the RA. It is a least preferable to the even less transparent world of donations by the fantastically rich, like Len Blavatnik’s recent £50 million to Tate.

[lukeactonwriting]

Billionaires and art

The term ‘donation’ implies a one-way supply of capital, with nothing expected in return, bar thanks. The reality of one of the biggest donations in recent years does not mirror this definition. Len Blavatnik donated a reported £50 million to help fund Tate Modern’s new extension, he now has his name on it.

Patronage has historically been the driving force behind artistic achievement: stereotypically, the wealthy enabling an un-financially minded creative whist also enhancing their own status culturally and socially. In the era of places like the Tate Galleries espousing a mission of public service, and emphasising the value of art’s place in society, this relationship has not changed, instead it has been obscured.

Len Blavatnik is an oligarch whose money comes from aluminium, oil, and more recently media in the form of Warner Music. His and Tate’s relationship is transactional. The dynamics of sponsorship are manifest in all but name. In this case, it is Blavatnik’s name on the wall.

Earlier this year, Tate Director said “The generosity of [Len Blavatnik’s] gift is almost unprecedented in Tate’s history.” In the context of the capital he has at hand, this gift is not generous. According to the Office National Statistics, the average weekly earnings in the UK are £502, making the £70 cost of membership to Tate 0.268% of their annual earnings. Forbes rates Mr. Blavatnik as worth over $19 billion, making the £50 million ($64.4 million) donation he made 0.338% of his total capital. The difference between these is seven hundredths of a percent.

In the same release, Tate acknowledged the part of the £50 million from the Government, £7 million from the Greater London Authority and £1 million from Southward Council. Public funding was on top of ‘a number of private individuals, trusts and foundations’ in making the extension possible.

Tate refused to comment on the details of Len Blavatnik’s donation, but it is hard to believe that Tate suggested the renaming. Oxford University received criticism after naming its School of Government after Mr Blavatnik, after the oligarch’s founding £75 million donation. Tate’s donations policy is to ‘balanc[e] the benefits against the potential reputational risks’ and that ‘the public benefit of any activity undertaken by Tate or its employees should outweigh any incidental private benefit that might accrue as a result’ . And £50 million is a lot of money, especially considering Tate’s unexpected £30 million shortfall after the costs for the extension were revised.

The nature of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, the vehicle for the donation to Tate, is also unclear. Despite its status as a Charitable Foundation (which exempts it from hearings by the Tate Ethics Committee), there is no trace of it online save for its mentions in press releases. In an enquiry to Blavatnik’s Access Industries, a representative refused to comment on the Foundation’s structure or its strategy for donations.

Like BP and Insight, Blavatnik’s business practices have come under scrutiny. Not only bearing the title of oligarch (a title that he has disputed in the Guardian and the New Yorker) in the exploitation of Russia’s undervalued, previously nationalised aluminium and oil resources, he was also party to the infamous TNK-BP joint venture, in which BP accused their Russian partners of state-enabled harassment in an effort to gain sole control of assets.

In a leaked diplomatic cable from the US, Blavatnik is described as having ‘a limited operational role in the company, reducing scope for friction [with western partners]’. When time came to sell the company to the Russian-owned Rosneft, it went for almost $28 billion.

By itself, the sentiment of Mr. Blavatnik’s donation is unclear. In the context of his other charitable efforts, many of which bearing his name, an exercise in brand recognition emerges.

[lukeactonwriting]

NewBridge Project Space is relocating

This April, the NewBridge Project on New Bridge St West, one of the largest organisations in Newcastle’s Creative Quarter and home to over 80 artists, will re-locate. Notice has been given by developers to leave the space that they have occupied for eight years. They will be moving to a new building in the city centre, but this looks to be part of a larger trend of developments making Newcastle less hospitable to artists and independent business. Norham House is owned by the Reuben Brothers, number 60 in Forbes’ 2016 list for the richest people alive, and is managed by GVA, one of the largest property management companies in the UK.

How artists moved into an area owned and managed by such money-oriented entities is a mixture of the financial crisis, when there was no money in property or its development, and artistic need. The artists got a cheap space to work in and the landlords got an 80% tax break from the council for housing not-for-profits. However, circumstances have changed, the economy is no longer in recession, so landlords don’t need what are called ‘meanwhile’ occupants because the people they’ve been waiting for, the people with money, have arrived.

Art often has a questionable relationship with finance. Ethics of scarcity due to artists’ deaths and corruption within institutions to do with appreciation and incestuous back-scratching being some of them. But in this specific case the moral relationship is decidedly clear.

Officially endorsed projects like The Baltic and its top-down organisation is not enough by itself to create environments that are conducive to creative growth. The Baltic should exist, large bureaucratic institutions are good at doing big things for wide audiences (and for a place that doesn’t have a permanent collection, it does well playing to its strengths by promoting strong and exciting emerging artists). But The Baltic is a place that you exhibit, not a place that you develop, and places for development are needed for larger institutions to exist. The Baltic itself understands this with their studios and project space in the Baltic 39.

The Director of the NewBridge Project, Charlotte Gregory, highlighted this need: ‘It was very hard, being a more emerging, early career artist to access, to find those networks, to find those more affordable spaces and have those opportunities. NewBridge grew out of a desire to create that.’ NewBridge and the developers both came from demand and opportunity, what separates them is their contribution to the city. New student housing and office space is common, the artists in the Creative Quarter are the cultural core of Newcastle.

The forces pushing NewBridge out and the ones slowly eroding the character of the city through gated, private student accommodation are of the same kind. Without personal and political will to challenge them, they will go as far as they can for profit. That is not what makes a city great, it makes it hollow.

Originally published in The Courier

[lukeactonwriting]

Look cool and cry

All sets of images on the internet are curated. The ones on social media are of people’s lives, an autobiography in pictures and the words accompanying in caption and comment. The formation of ideals of things, like beauty and lifestyle, peddled by the media condensing them for-you-for-money (it is in their financial best interest for this to keep moving, also for you to never stop vaping).

The businesses mostly having insidious business models ethically, but the people just forming content. They part of a larger strata though. Everyone, even me, with minimal social media presence, curates. If you are participating it means you cannot escape it.

The prevailing idea among people with social anxiety is to not fucking look at social media because it is not real and comparing your life to it is not healthy. In this notion are the parts of the uses of images that become problematic: it is the projected positivity of the people and things in them through a paranoid lack of it.

Amalia Ulman’s fake boob job, from ‘Excellences and Perfections’

The construction and curation of images has become far more accessible. Once expensive, now cheap. Once scarce, now common. But it has not made a new peacetime because it has been assimilated and re-purposed, because capitalism is really good at that.

The people in social media are always having fun and doing the right things. There is sadness and anger in images but they tell an implicitly romanticised story by the power in the concrete-ness of the image. See Amalia Ulman’s Excellences and Perfections. The piece, a performance piece via Instagram account, was about the construction of femininity – but it can be extended wider. The pastiche worked because it was so accurate. It highlighted the vindictiveness, gullibility and faux compassion in the commenters that could have had no irl connection to this simulacrum of a person – proving the nature of their actions: a linked curation between the images on their account and their images on others. People do not think that social media profiles are actual people or identities, they are not ‘performances’, they are just a function of peoples’ use of the internet. It’s where aesthetic trends come through as not one could actually live them but they are a shorthand for association with a kind of person and things and habits and people.

The culture of the social media decides the kinds of narratives that are the ‘norm’, like Tumblr, with the emotionally engaged web-diary and its own lo-fi aesthetic (fuck it).

Robert Extraterrestrial, ‘I post therefore I am’

Not fun, but what is appreciated as ‘best’ through the pseudo-validating fame of thousands and thousands of followers. You must be on-brand, bro.

A lot of these problems come from social media becoming a substantial part of your life, remember what it is, which is difficult with a popular medium – passivity is encouraged, analysis discouraged.

Don’t take it seriously because that’s more than it is, it is not something in itself. Go outside you fucking blogger.

Originally published by If You Leave

[lukeactonwriting]

Style Over Substance Over Style: Art or Documentary, blurred lines within a single medium

Yuri Kozyrev, Iraq 2002

There is often a tension seen between documentary and art, a contrast in objectives and aesthetics. Photography lending itself to objectivity, but flipped by art. The friction is between the terms used to label work, rather than the work itself. It is a problem created not inherent. 

For both documentary and art, the setting in which they are seen and the context they are viewed in necessarily affects the images, what they represent, their ‘message’.

The sense of conflict comes from the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’, a purity in form and motive.

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meaning in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.”

- Oscar Wilde, Preface to ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’, 1890.

It is for the image itself, not what it represents, that you make a picture. This, in opposition to documentary photography: using the supposed objectivity of the medium to faithfully record a scene or subject.

Despite these definitions, the line between them is worn. Art not being against direct engagement with social issues, documentary taking form into consideration when presenting its subjects.

James Mollison - School, Gujarat, India; Moscow, Russia; Nairobi, Kenya

Consideration here being what led photographer James Mollison to amalgamate of the ‘crucial moments’ of a scene into a single shot in his ‘Playground’ series. Tampering with the composition to create a scene that was never real at one moment. This with the considerations for lighting, composition and drama that are present in the photography of many Magnum photographers including Jérôme Sessini (new, full-member of Magnum). His image of a priest blessing protesters in Ukraine looks like its subjects are arranged in renaissance proportions. This care in composition can be seen in most of his work.

“I don’t like rigid categories. Sometime there is art in journalism and journalism in art. Conscience, heart, beauty, balance and loss of balance are essentials for me. ”

- Jerome Sessini

Jerome Sessini, UKRAINE. Kiev. An Orthodox priest blesses the protesters on a barricade. February 20, 2014

Photo Journalist Yuri Kozyrev’s work similarly presents his subjects, being in the canon of events from 9/11 that makes up the War on Terror including a series shot in Iraq at the time (see top image). The subject is such an iconic and contemporary conflict, you cannot escape the reality of the images. The clarity of his frames, which go further than only reporting, articulate the nature and consequences of the war through the handling of visual language.

I am going to be describing genres here, so please don’t be too dismissive because I know they are arbitrary. The images that tend to be labelled as art use a more overtly metaphorical visual language, using the aesthetics and imagery of the image itself to directly influence the viewer’s interpretation of it. This is particularly the case in the photographs of young people that preoccupy the vogue on social media platforms like Instagram or Tumblr. The pronounced emotional colouring of the scenes and the active interpretation of the reader.  Jessica Levin’s photography (see more of her work in IYL Vol. III) shows this in her representations of friends and landscapes: without context, they are freely associated by the viewer. They have heightened interpretive potential in their ambiguity, an aspect not afforded by photography focused on reportage.

Jessica Levin, taken from Flickr page, 2011

Researching this I found it difficult to find any ‘Art Photography’ that wasn’t also as documenting something. A current cultural trend being the conflation of genres, most clearly seen in music, but also in any art of this post-post-post-modern world. Even traditional religious art is in the business of ‘documenting’ scenes from the Gospel. Nothing is without context, it would be incomplete.

Jessica Levin, taken from Flickr page, 2011

The main difference is the uses of the medium. Documentary’s is to document, implying a faith to the subject that you would not expect from art and its licences. But then some of the things that photograph document (the moon landings, 9/11) stop being only images because of how large they are in the collective psyche. ‘Earthrise’ and ‘The Falling Man’ are examples of this, in their ability to inspire wonder and despair. The images became symbolic, cultural tropes.

“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.”

- Oscar Wilde, Preface to ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’, 1890

Like politics, photographs are on a circular spectrum, an axis that confuses the definitions of each as they are both essentially linked. The nuance, complexity and inconsistent contexts of viewing do not endear photography to categorisation. Each discipline informs the other.

Originally published by If You Leave