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item0063E 938, 939 938 4 March 2004 Lord Sainsbury says...
Please forgive a little blowing of the own trumpet, but it has just been brought to my attention that, in the House of Lords in January, Lord Sainsbury acknowledged my role in generating the idea of community interest companies. In introducing the Second Reading debate, he said -
This was a genuine case of "joint inspiration". I had vaguely got hold of the idea, in the course of a conversation with my good friend Kiffer Weisselberg, when we were wrestling with the vexed question of the ban on remuneration for charity trustees. A glimmer of a thought crossed my mind at that stage, imagining the creation of an artificial person to which the charity-law constraint would not apply - and yet the public could still be given full assurance against asset-stripping and demutualisation. I dimly perceived that, within the realm of company law, it "should be possible to create" such an abstraction, a new form of abdroid. But my company law was pretty rusty. I then mentioned the thought to Stephen Lloyd, over a glass of wine at Balls Brothers wine-bar at Cheapside. He is a first-class lawyer, with a mind as clear as a bell: when you are stumbling (as I was, out of touch with current law) it is a blessing to find someone who is entirely on the same wave-length. Stephen understood the point within seconds, and shared my " no impediment" reaction - there should be no barrier to moving company law in that direction. Within ten minutes we had sketched out the whole concept, on a Balls Brothers napkin. Stephen went away and next day produced a short schedule of the amendments which would be needed to the Companies Act. It turned out to be just as simple as we had both suspected. Magic! I put up one of my very first websites, a few weeks later - as you will see, a rather more primitive version than at present.. Subsequently, the Downing Street think-tank took it up with alacrity, and the Treasury and the DTI soon wanted part of the action. The rest is history.This is the full extract from David Sainsbury's speech, just the introductory paragraph - Private Action, Public Benefit, as a new, purpose-made vehicle for some social enterprises. That idea drew on earlier work by several people and groups, including Stephen Lloyd, Roger Warren Evans, the Charity Law Association and others. "My noble friend Lady Thornton, who is chair of the Social Enterprise Coalition, expertly explained social enterprise in the debate on the Queen's Speech. I do not need to add anything to her speech, other than to say that consultation has confirmed a real demand for the community interest company as an additional form for social enterprises, an alternative to charities, industrial and provident societies and ordinary companies. "We believe that the creation of the community interest company will help those people—and I am pleased to say that there are many of them—who want to start and work in organisations which do business for the ultimate benefit of the community or part of it. The community interest company will be the right vehicle for many organisations which wish to trade and to supply goods or services for a social purpose, such as local regeneration or providing training within a community. It will be clearly identified as a community interest company so that everyone who deals with it will be able to see instantly that it has social aims. It will be subject to regulation at the minimum level necessary to maintain confidence in the form and to ensure that it uses its assets and profits for the community interest..” The Government is, sadly, threatening to make a major mistake, in forbidding charities to adopt this new form of CIC incorporation, merely because they are also (in the same Bill) promoting a new form of "charity company format". I plan to make an attempt to head off this awful error, before it is made. Does any of this resonate with you? Or does it bore you? Drop me a line
939 5 March 2004 Mind “The Gap”!
Have you understood the game that is being played in Iraq, by the US and the UK? Have you grasped the significance of I ask that, because this timetable is not what it seems. It seems to be based on practical, electoral considerations, the personal safety of voters, and the lack of civic order in the country. Yet the considerations no ordinary constraints of timetable, no ordinary dictates of practicality. It is nothing of the kind. It is not a matter of the lack of preparation, the absence of Census data, the difficulty of organising elections – that’s claptrap. The harsher truth is that none of the major long-term contracts (for oil, water supplies, utilities, telecommunications) can be completed and signed as legally-binding commitments by the present occupation regime. International law simply does not allow “Occupying Powers” (for that is all they are, legally) to undertake massive constitutional re-structuring of an occupied state: their role is simply to restore order, and hand power back to the State authorities. Which is what the Coalition will do, on 30 June. And on 1 July, when sovereignty has been re-transferred, all these contracts can be signed, principally with US corporations – on a long-term binding basis, by the restored sovereign state. No subsequent Government will be able to overturn on what is signed in July, without paying the most enormous compensation. Private contract law will have been used (as it used in all PFI contracts in the UK) to oust the power of a future democratic government.Did you realise that? If not, will you drop me a line?
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