Outpacing the state

Umair Javed 

Published August 19, 2024

DAWN

THE modern state differs from its earlier predecessors in that it seeks to regulate and control all aspects of the society it lays claim to. Whether it is successfully able to do it or not is a different matter. Recently released results from the country’s digital census in 2023 help visualise some fairly far-reaching transformations taking place in Pakistani society. It is worth going through a couple of these, given how they interact with the state’s attempt to regulate and control different aspects of its citizen’s lives. One such arena is the country’s ongoing struggles with the electricity sector. Decision-makers across multiple regimes since the 1990s opted for a model of private sector-led electricity generation that expanded capacity but produces expensive electricity. The end-result of this model is an energy grid that is singularly reliant on residential consumers staying connected and paying a high tariff.

It is in this context that the state is attempting to regulate the use of solar energy, and especially net-metering connections. As Asha Amirali pointed out in an excellent piece on these very pages it needs high-consuming residential connections to stay on the grid and pay a relatively high tariff. Ultimately, it may be successful in discouraging net-metering in high-income households by changing the buy-back rate or by refusing to give out new connections. But there is an entirely different transformation taking place at lower tiers.

As per the 2023 census, approximately eight per cent of all Pakistani households — nearly three million households comprising 20m people — rely on solar panels as their primary energy source for electricity (lighting etc.). This number is up by about 60pc since the last such measurement through a sample survey in 2021. On its own, the number may not seem very high. But it masks important variations. Solar panel deployment is understandably higher in rural than in urban areas — 11pc of all rural households are reliant on it versus just 3pc of urban ones.

There are other key variations as well. In Punjab, solar reliance is not very high — just under 2pc of all households. But it is considerably higher in KP (13pc), Sindh (13pc), and Balochistan (26pc). Across the provinces, the urban-rural divide is fairly stark, with numbers reaching as high as 34pc in rural Balochistan.

Greater connectivity and educational attainment lead to heightened expectations and aspirations.

This variation captures important aspects of Pakistan’s development trajectory. It highlights the relative success of electricity grid expansion across rural areas in Punjab, but its continued failure in the smaller provinces. It also shows a higher rate of self-sufficiency among lower-income rural segments, who are bypassing the state altogether for reasons that likely include reliability and cost.

Ultimately, this dramatic turn towards solar shows the absence of a key point of interface — the electricity grid — between the state and its citizens. Just between 2017 and 2023, the percentage of rural households across Pakistan relying on grid electricity declined by 6pc.

If citizens cannot receive any electricity supply, let alone a reliable and cost-effective one from the state, they have one less reason to trust it or to see themselves as partners in a larger social contract. Alternatively, expecting deference and fealty from a citizen solely due to geographical incident of birth is unlikely to be successful over the long term. Another key issue of state regulation in recent months is the internet. State institutions are devoting energy to ‘digital terrorism’, which allegedly leads Pakistani youth astray. The logical response, in their view, is an internet-strangulating firewall that slows down the spread of content deemed to be questionable.

It’s worth considering exactly what such views are up against, demographically speaking. Among Pakistanis above the age of 45, ie, the generation currently found in positions of authority, only six out of 100 had a BA degree or above. Among those between 35 and 40, the same stat inches up to about 10 in 100. While new census data showing educational attainment by age group is yet to be made public, enrolment data is available. There are just over 4m students presently enrolled in colleges and universities across Pakistan. This number alone is 50pc of the total number of all graduates (and postgraduates) in the country back in 2017. Further, if we take 20 to 24 as the standard age range of higher education, we would end up with an upper estimate of nearly one in five, or 20pc, with college attainment. In other words, a tripling of university access in the space of two decades.

Combined with mobile internet reaching nearly 90pc of all households, and the sheer size of the youth bulge (76m individuals between 15 and 35), the demographic and social reality of Pakistan is on a planet entirely separate from the one occupied by the state authorities. One can speculate about the political preferences and allegiances of young people and their implications for the country’s ongoing politics. But it is equally important to stress that greater connectivity and educational attainment lead to heightened expectations and aspirations. Such expectations are unlikely to be satiated through the accidental leftovers of a re­­so­urce pie that decision-makers divide and dev­our among themselves. They are also unlikely to be quelled through lectures on patriotism delivered from above or from the strangulation of the internet.

Despite its faltering nature, Pakistan’s development trajectory is inducing societal change in its economy, in consumption preferences, and ideas at a fairly rapid pace. The implications of such change are becoming apparent, in the bypassing of state-provided services and the growing anger and frustration of young people across the country. What is left to see is whether state authorities acknowledge a strategy of adaption, or whether they stay committed to one of forcible control.

The writer teaches sociology at Lums.
X: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

PAKISTAN
Businesses, rights activists decry internet slowdown

AFP 

Published August 19, 2024

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government is throttling the internet and social media while it tests new controls to crush dissent, activists and business leaders say, putting the country’s economic recovery at risk.

Internet networks have been up to 40 per cent slower than normal since July, according to one IT association, while documents, images and voice notes have been disrupted on WhatsApp, used by tens of millions of people.

Digital rights experts believe the state is testing a ‘firewall’ — a security system that monitors network traffic but can also be used to control online spaces.

“The Internet slowdown is due to the installation of a national firewall and content filtering system by the state aimed at increasing surveillance and at censoring political dissent, especially the criticism of the security establishment for its interference in politics,” digital rights expert and activist Usama Khilji told AFP.

The authorities appear to be targeting WhatsApp because of its end-to-end encryption capabilities, which enable users to securely share information without it being accessed by any third party, he added.

The government and the telecommunications authority for weeks refused to comment on the slowdown.

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Not business as usual

The issues have surfaced as Pakistan’s military — the country’s most powerful institution — says it is battling the so-called “digital terrorism”.

Regular rallies have been held this year demanding the state do more to tackle militant violence in the border regions with Afghanistan, while protesters in southwestern Balochistan have rallied over alleged rights abuses by authorities in their crackdown on separatist groups.

But analysts say the main target of the digital disruption is the party of jailed opposition leader Imran Khan, still wildly popular and boosted by a young, tech-savvy voter base.

Prominent Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has launched a legal challenge against the government over “the apparent installation of a firewall” at Islamabad High Court, which is due to hear the case on Monday.

The firewall’s “inexplicable opacity and ambiguity” is sapping Pakistan’s economic potential and could cost its IT sector up to $300 million, according to the Pakistan Software Houses Association, which represents IT firms.

Shahzad Arshad, head of the Wireless & Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, warned that if “this continues, we will see a mass exodus of businesses from Pakistan”. He added that connectivity had slowed by up 40pc over the past month.

But even as authorities throttled connectivity and WhatsApp access, Pakistan’s Punjab province splashed out last week on adverts in New York’s Times Square — trying to sell itself as an “IT city”.



“Even if a firewall is necessary for security, trials could have saved the livelihoods of thousands of freelance software developers and avoided damage to Pakistan’s credibility as a reliable supplier of IT/IT-enabled services,” Ehsan Malik, CEO of the Pakistan Business Council said Saturday.

AFP has contacted WhatsApp parent company Meta for comment.

‘Fundamental rights’

Activists have long criticised the government’s censorship and control of the internet and media, shrinking an already limited space for free speech in the conservative country. The social media platform X has been banned in Pakistan since the election when it was used to air allegations of poll rigging against Mr Khan’s party.

The party’s social media team has also been targeted by arrests and detentions.

Shahzad Ahmad, head of the independent digital rights watchdog Bytes for All in Pakistan, said the firewall was largely designed to give the government control of the internet.“We believe that the firewall will create distrust among IT investors in Pakistan… and will also compromise citizens’ fundamental rights.”

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

Predatory instincts

‘surveillance capitalism’

Huma Yusuf 

Published August 19, 2024 

DAWN

THE government installs a ‘web management system’. Unidentified men whisk away a YouTuber who posts satirical content. A fashion designer threatens legal action against the director and cast of a TV serial. A legislator objects to a female professional’s outfit and calls for SOPs for women’s attire. These may seem like disconnected matters. But they are signs that a surveillance society is becoming entrenched in Pakistan, an outcome we must resist.

Anxieties about surveillance have been mounting globally and are largely linked to ‘surveillance capitalism’, ie, the commodification of personal data, particularly by Big Tech. There is a growing focus on the extent to which individuals are aware of what personal data they are surrendering, to whom, and why.

Concerns about surveillance capitalism mounted when it became clear that customer data collection was enabling not only targeted advertising and improved user experience but also behavioural manipulation, for example, by skewing voting preferences. The regulation of Big Tech and its use of personal data will soon be a key human rights battle.

In this context, old-fashioned state surveillance — in the sense of the state collecting information about its citizens — seems passé. But it continues to be a major concern globally, and certainly in Pakistan.

No good comes of surveillance states.

In an article for Constitutional Political Economy, Alshamy et al argue that state surveillance can either be protective-productive or predatory. In the former case, the state collects personal information to support citizens and improve welfare service delivery. In the latter, state data collection “reduces citizen welfare by violating the rights of citizens or by extracting resources from citizens to benefit a small group of politically connected elites. This harms individual agency, freedom and self-governing democracy.”

The authors note that predatory data collection is non-transparent, poorly legislated and regulated, and often in the service of nebulous national security considerations that can be interpreted variously by whichever stakeholder has most power. In this scenario, the courts become helpless to challenge surveillance, as they too become subsumed by the state narrative. The plight of missing persons in Pakistan is the perfect illustration of a predatory surveillance state in action.

Increasing attention is paid to the links between capitalist and state surveillance, in the sense of public understanding that private sector players, such as internet service providers or social media platforms, are required to surrender customer data when the state comes calling.

But what is less considered is the impact of surveillance becoming normalised — the de facto approach to political and social interaction. When power becomes synonymous with the ability to surveil the activities of others — shame them, report them, and so ultimately control them — then it will contaminate society. Those who seek status and control will increasingly use surveillance as a tool to shape public behaviour to their own ends. Meanwhile, self-censorship, the survival tactic of Pakistani media, will become the default mode of all citizens.

Pakistan has already seen the toxic effect of this kind of social surveillance through the misuse of the blasphemy laws — the fear that someone may perceive something you say, do, or absentmindedly forward to be profane, and wield that ultimate power of an accusation, resulting in conviction or lynching.

But we are now on the precipice where social control and abuse previously linked to state monitoring of ‘anti-establishm­ent’ activities is be­­coming more pervasive. We are moving from the realm of state and capitalist surveillance to one of social surveilla­n­­ce, one in which citizens, taking a cue from the state itself, are willing to police each other’s clothing, artistic output and sense of humour.

The powers that be may be pleased by this ripple effect. But they should tread with caution as no good comes of surveillance states. The most obvious toll is economic. We have heard all week about the millions lost to internet disruptions while the state installs its ‘web management system’, but that may not be the extent of it. Academic research on the Stasi in East Germany (admittedly an extreme example) has documented economic losses from lack of innovation, less self-employment, widespread unemployment and brain drain.

More material is the social toll of less inclusive, more predatory societies. In our highly weaponised and already conflict-prone context this would manifest as surveillance as a trigger for violence. The ultimate problem with surveillance is that its parameters are necessarily non-transparent and ever-shifting, meaning everyone is vulnerable. Who knows who already has eyes on your data?

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

Tony Blair’s AI mania sweeps Britain’s new government

The former PM sees artificial intelligence as a silver bullet for ailing public services, government inefficiency and a stagnant economy. Is he right?

A tight knot of Blairite ministers are carrying forward his vision for the power of AI to transform government and public services. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

August 19, 2024 
By Laurie Clarke
POLITICO EU

LONDON — On stage at the Tony Blair Institute’s annual conference, five days after the July general election, the eponymous founder regaled the audience with evangelical zeal.

The freshly removed Tory government had bequeathed Labour a “ghastly inheritance,” the former prime minister said.

“There is only one game changer in our view, [and] that is harnessing … the 21st century technological revolution,” he said. Britain must grasp “the full opportunity of governing in the age of artificial intelligence.”

“In this new world, companies and nations will either rise or fall.”

Such claims will be familiar to anyone who’s paid attention to Blair’s interventions in past years. His think tank's central animating force is the revolutionary potential of technology. AI is touted as a silver bullet for ailing public services, government inefficiency and a stagnant economy.

With a Labour government in power in the U.K. for the first time in 14 years, Blair’s influence is growing. A tight knot of Blairite ministers is carrying forward his vision for the power of AI to transform government and public services.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) event featured high-profile appearances from Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Cabinet Office fixer Pat McFadden, invigorated from the recent election that saw Labour win a landslide victory.

Meanwhile, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has made driving digital transformation across Whitehall a top priority in his new role.

“We’re putting AI at the heart of the government’s agenda to boost growth and improve our public services,” Kyle said recently.

The messaging was echoed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who said AI would have a crucial role to play in helping the government find £3 billion in savings after an unexpected “black hole” was discovered in the public finances.

The plans have tech firms — some of whom have partnerships with Blair’s institute — swarming, lured by the tantalizing prospect of millions of pounds of public contracts.

But while most agree that AI holds promise for the public sector, some warn against “snake oil” salesmen and caution about embedding the sometimes unreliable and opaque tech into the heart of government.
The pitch

The TBI has claimed that integrating AI into the heart of government could save up to £40 billion annually and shed one million civil servants.

In a flurry of reports released to coincide with the TBI conference, the institute also claimed that more than 40 percent of the tasks performed by public sector workers could be partly automated by AI-based software.

Some of the tasks envisaged as ripe for AI assistance include helping to match supply of public services to demand, accelerating the processing of planning applications and benefits claims, supporting research and drafting notes — the kind of unglamorous back office work that can consume hours of labor.

The TBI’s headline figures have been disputed; academics quickly called attention to the fact that they’d been informed by consulting ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, itself.

“If you look across … the public sector, and the number of backlogs, waiting lists … we’re at a kind of pressure point across public services,” said Jeegar Kakkad, who previously worked as director of government innovation at the TBI and advised the Labour leadership during its time in opposition. He’s since taken on a new role at the TBI.

The TBI’s headline figures have been disputed; academics quickly called attention to the fact that they’d been informed by consulting ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, itself. | Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images

“Our view at the institute is to really think about, okay, where are the off-the-shelf technologies that could be deployed to help with those pressure points,” he told POLITICO in an interview conducted while still in his previous role.

This includes demand forecasting tools used to predict bed capacity in hospitals, said Kakkad, and AI that could help triage the millions of pieces of correspondence some departments receive every year, or the enormous backlog of cases in England’s crumbling court system.
The tech connection

But TBI’s coziness with the tech sector has aroused suspicion over the motivations behind its bullish claims.

Tech billionaire Larry Ellison has pledged a total of $375 million over the years for Blair's think tank. Ellison's cloud computing company Oracle is in one of the sectors benefiting from an AI boom and has a commercial interest in digitizing health records, another of the TBI’s key recommendations to governments.

One of the TBI’s major reports on AI for government was produced in partnership with Faculty, an applied AI company that has established itself as a go-to government supplier despite attracting scrutiny over its political connections.

Faculty’s founders are friends of Dominic Cummings, an adviser to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but the firm has wasted no time getting acquainted with the new Labour administration. Before Labour won the election, a Faculty staffer was seconded to the office of then Shadow Tech Secretary Kyle.

Business is intrigued by the new administration’s plans. U.S. industry lobby group Chambers of Progress, which includes the likes of Amazon, Apple and Meta, sent a memo to members shortly after the election highlighting Labour’s interest in government digital innovation as an enticing opportunity.

Microsoft has also been promoting its own AI product suite to central and local government. The company recently published a report championing its tech, including its Copilot tool, which integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as useful for central and local government to summarize emails, generate text and create documents.

The tool has already been adopted by more than 100 local councils. Trials of the tool are underway in a handful of central government departments, too.

It’s important civil servants “know what ‘good’ looks like,” said Robyn Scott, founder of Apolitical, a learning platform for public officials. “Because there are a lot of great companies out there … and there are a lot of snake oil salesmen.”
Greasing the wheels of government

Right now, AI isn’t widely used across government.

The National Audit Office found last fall that 37 percent of government bodies that responded to a survey said they’d deployed AI, typically in only one or two use cases each.

The most controversial uses have drawn the most attention to date: for example, in predictive policing, the analysis of live facial recognition data and the use of algorithms to identify fraudulent benefit claims. Scant information about these use cases has been made available to the public.

But the generative AI boom of the past 18 months has drawn renewed attention to how the tech could be wielded to speed up monotonous tasks and grease the creaking wheels of Whitehall.

The previous Tory government had begun to expedite the roll-out of the tech. Former Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden launched an AI “hit squad” in November aimed at cutting jobs in the civil service.

The so-called Incubator for AI set up pilot projects using generative AI to analyze responses to government consultations, power a chatbot that would interact with citizens and collate documents for ministers, replacing the traditional “red box.”

Recent reports from the U.K. government’s Central Digital and Data Office and the Ada Lovelace Institute agree with the TBI that AI holds promise, but the range of predicted productivity gains varies wildly

.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has made driving digital transformation across Whitehall a top priority in his new role. | Leon Neal/Getty Images

An analysis of the costs of overhauling legacy digital infrastructure and implementing the new tech across government rarely features in the most optimistic forecasts. “Technology is not free,” pointed out tech consultant Rachel Coldicutt in response to Reeves’ plan to use AI to save costs.

“If something costs £500 million this year, how long will it be expected to take to recoup those costs, and could that money be better spent elsewhere?”

“We’re really at a preliminary stage of experimentation,” said Imogen Parker of Ada Lovelace. “We need to learn much more quickly about what works and what doesn't.”

This means looking at “the messy reality” of how this tech interacts with government processes, rather than “hypothetical, perfect, idealized use cases,” she adds.

A report from think tank IPPR found that about 10 percent of tasks could be automated across jobs in the private and public sector. “There are very few jobs that you could just … plug in AI and you don’t need humans anymore,” said IPPR senior economist Carsten Jung.

Guidance issued to civil servants last year noted that generative AI tools “can, and do, make errors,” meaning officials would need to verify the outputs. It noted that the tools could be biased and pose data privacy risks too.

Another concern is how it might change the nature of the relationship between government and citizens. “When you insert a technology into a system or service, it has a ripple effect … It changes what people expect, and it changes how people behave,” said Parker.

She pointed to the example of MPs using AI to write emails to constituents or the government automating the analysis of consultation responses. “It will unquestionably change the way that residents feel about their interactions with that system … It might change people’s willingness to engage in consultations to start with.”

LGBTQ+ book ban attempts are increasing in UK schools, study finds

By Jordan Robledo
18th August 2024

GAY TIMES



School librarians in the UK have opened up about the increased censorship regarding LGBTQIA+ books.

Over the last couple of years, queer literature in the UK has been targeted by conservative individuals.

In April 2023, a study from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip) revealed that a third of librarians were asked to censor or remove LGBTQIA+ content by members of the public, with some even being threatened.

“We want to get past this period of culture war and politics and really focus on the job in hand,” Nick Poole, Cilip’s chief executive explained to The Guardian.

“It continues to be true that it just takes a spark in a children’s book to inspire a young person to go on and do something brilliant. That’s what we want to focus on doing.”

Unfortunately, the situation in the UK school library system has reportedly worsened.

According to The Independent, new data from the Index on Censorship found that 53% of surveyed school librarians were asked to remove LGBTQIA+ books, while 56% of librarians were forced to follow through with such requests.

The report also revealed some of the key books that have been targeted, including Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, ABC Pride by Louie Stowell, Elly Barnes and Amy Phelps, and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson.

Since the eye-opening data was announced, an array of LGBTQIA+ activists and organisations have pushed back against the alarming rise of censorship.


Photo: Unsplash

In a statement to The Independent, Just Like Us CEO Laura Mackay said: “This small-scale study shows some worrying cases of fears around LGBT+ books in school libraries, but removing books will never change the fact that LGBT+ people, including same-sex parents, are part of society.

“The recent rise in far-right attitudes and dears stoked around trans young people make life so much harder for LGBT+ young people, particularly those of colour… it’s vital that young people can access books that reflect the diversity of the world around them.”

Local librarian Alice Leggatt echoed similar sentiments to the aforementioned news outlet, adding that librarians “don’t really have anything” to defend them from the ongoing requests.

“Pretty much every librarian I’ve spoken with says this is more of an issue than it was five years ago, and they’re concerned about in a way they never had to think about it before,” she explained.

“But we don’t really have anything with teeth to help defend school librarians, their collections and their students when these things happen.”

The UK isn’t the only country that’s seen an increase in book censorship and bans.

In the US, multiple states have attempted to block the availability of queer and racial-themed books in public and school libraries.

According to a report from The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, over 4,000 books have been targeted, in addition to “1,247 demands to censor library books, materials and resources in 2023.”

UK

Labour paves the way for huge payouts to workers contacted out of hours by their bosses in 'right to switch off' plan

By Emily Cooper
THE DAILY MIRROR
18 August 2024 

Workers who are relentlessly contacted by their bosses outside of work hours could be entitled to compensation - as Labour pushes the 'right to switch off'.

Plans under consideration by the new Labour government could help employees draw a line in the sand between their work and home life - as seen in the party's 'right to switch off' campaign pledge.

The government are looking to push out a code of practice which sets out normal working hours and clarifies when an employee can expect to be contacted by their employer.

Continue watchingRival anti-immigration marchers and counter protest rally face offafter the ad

The policy, believed to be spearheaded by new deputy prime minister Angela Raynor, includes the right for worker's to refuse to take on extra work on weekends or to carry out work-related tasks while on annual leave.

Pushy bosses who repeatedly breach this agreement could be taken to an employment tribunal and drained of thousands of pounds as compensation.

The Labour government is looking to introduce the 'right to switch off' in a plan believed to be spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor (pictured)

The government are looking to push out a code of practice which sets out normal working hours and clarifies when an employee can expect to be contacted by their employer (Stock Image)


Although the out-of-hours contact would not warrant litigation on its own, employees could point to it as part of a wider claim against their employer.

Such practice could increase the likelihood of a worker successfully winning their claim, according to The Times.

As it stands companies who are proven to have ignored codes of practice set out by Acas are required to pay compensation - which can be increased by 25 per cent depending on aggravating factors.

Acas is an indpendant public body that provides free and impartial information to both employers and employees on workplace relations and employment law.

UK
Grenfell Tower residents told to 'stay put for too long'

Kate Lamble
Presenter, Grenfell: Building a Disaster•@katelamble
Jo Casserly
Producer, Grenfell: Building a Disaster•@JoCasserly

BBC

Getty Images
Residents of Grenfell Tower were told to “stay put for too long” during the fire which destroyed the building, London Fire Brigade (LFB) boss Andy Roe has told the BBC.

Mr Roe - who revoked the "stay put" advice minutes after taking charge at the scene - acknowledged the policy “would have had an impact on people's decision making”.

Seventy-two people died as a result of the fire at the West London tower block, which broke out in the early hours of 14 June 2017.

A public inquiry has been hearing evidence about the causes of - and response to - the fire since September 2017. Its final report is due next month.

Just before 01:00 a fire broke out in the kitchen of a fourth floor flat at the 23 storey tower block in North Kensington.

The fire was reported and 999 call handlers working for the LFB told residents not directly affected by fire, heat or smoke to remain in their flats until help arrived. But as they were issuing this advice, the fire was spreading rapidly.

The effectiveness of “stay put” - which remains the policy in the event of fire in most high-rise buildings - relies on a building being properly constructed. Regulations should prevent fire spreading from one flat to another for at least 60 minutes.

This was not the case at Grenfell Tower. As part of a refurbishment, combustible cladding and insulation had been fitted on the outside of the building, and in less than 20 minutes, the fire climbed 19 storeys to the top of the tower, fuelled by the flammable materials.

The Grenfell Tower inquiry has already found “many more lives” would likely have been saved if incident commanders had told residents to evacuate an hour earlier.

Speaking to the BBC podcast Grenfell: Building a disaster London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe - who was assistant commissioner at the time of the fire - spoke of his disbelief and horror when he arrived at the scene at 02:30 to find three sides of the building alight.

“It was a shock - people were screaming,” Mr Roe said. “I could look into the building and see that fire was a long way inside it. People hanging from windows. Unbelievable...people on the ground as well.

“I was in my fire brigade uniform, so people were stopping me and saying, ‘What's happening? My mum's in there, my brothers and sisters are in there’.”

What happened at Grenfell Tower?

No Grenfell charges until end of 2026, police say

As the most senior officer on site Mr Roe took over as incident commander, and at 02:47 - one hour and 53 minutes after the first emergency call - gave the order to revoke the "stay put" policy. From then on, anyone calling 999 was told to get out of the building.

“What I must say, out of respect to the families, is that people were advised to stay put for too long,” Mr Roe said.

Revoking the "stay put" advice was “an easy decision to take”, he said, but would have been more difficult to make earlier in the night, due to the risks of evacuating people through smoke logged stairwells.

LFB
LFB commissioner Andy Roe says Grenfell's residents were advised to stay put for too long

Munira Mahmoud, a Grenfell resident who left the tower with her children on the night of the fire, last spoke to her friend Rania Ibrahim, who lived on the 23rd floor, at around 03:00.

Call handlers had advised Rania “the safest place for you at the moment is in the flat” - and she had decided to remain there.

Munira urged Rania to leave, but Rania said she would not be able to survive. Rania was coughing, and by now the tower's hallways and stairwells were thick with black smoke.

Rania Ibrahim and her two daughters, Hania, age 3 and Fethia, age 4, died in their flat.

Messages from the tower: Piecing together the timeline of London's Grenfell Tower fire in the words of victims and survivors

Reflecting on the guidance given to Grenfell Tower residents by the London Fire Brigade to remain in their homes, Mr Roe told the BBC: “We're all talking about this with the benefit of hindsight, but we know that advice would have had an impact on people's decision making.

"It would just be so wrong to the families, to those who lost their lives, not to recognise that.”

Listen to Grenfell: Building a disaster on BBC Sounds.

Missed opportunities, unheeded warnings and the failure of a state to protect its citizens. What a fire in West London that killed 72 people shows us how Britain works, and doesn’t.

Lahore police probing claims about disinformation that sparked UK riots

Atika Rehman | Imran Gabol

Published August 19, 2024
DAWN

LONDON / LAHORE: More than a week after the UK witnessed widespread riots in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport, law enforcement agencies in Pakistan are probing claims that the disinformation originated from a website that also has a footprint in Pakistan.

Recent reports aired by UK media identified a little-known platform, Channel3Now, as being the source of the disinformation that claimed the British-born 17-year-old suspect was a Muslim immigrant, who had arrived in the UK on a boat.

However, the assertion by UK broadcaster ITV News that a Pakistani individual was the originator of the false news story has been questioned, both by local law enforcement and other UK media outlets.

Lahore Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Faisal Kamran told Dawn they were analysing the claims made by UK broadcaster ITV News and had initiated a probe.

No official word on whether UK authorities have sought assistance from Pakistan

There has been no official word, both from UK and Pakistani authorities, about any formal contacts between the two governments on the issue.

But sources in local law enforcement say that the person identified in the ITV report was a freelancer working for the website, which aggregates crime-related news from UK and the US and republishes the stories for the sake of clicks and advertising revenue.

The BBC report, which tracked down several people linked to Channel3Now, also endorses the view that the platform appears to be “a commercial operation attempting to aggregate crime news while making money on social media”.

It recruits freelance writers from several countries, including Pakistan and India.

The BBC traced the people behind Channel3Now, including individuals in Pakistan, Canada and the US.

It also named an individual linked to the platform, Kevin, who said there are “more than 30” people in the US, UK, Pakistan and India who work for the site, which usually recruits freelancers.

But the subsequent ITV report, which included a doorstep interview confronting Farhan Asif — the Lahore-based contributor for Channel3Now — painted him as playing “a significant role in a network of news websites that have promoted falsehoods”.

It noted, however, that Channel3Now regularly publishes sensational news stories under the pretense of being an American-style TV channel.

The BBC, in contrast, quoted Kevin as saying that Farhan Asif in particular was not involved in the false Southport story, which the site has publicly apologised for, and blamed “our UK-based team”.

It is also worth mentioning that although the freelancer is referred to as a journalist in some reports, journalistic circles in Lahore say they’ve never heard of him.

Wider disinfo network

Despite claims of Russian backing for the website, the BBC could not verify any direct links between Channel3Now and Moscow either. However, the report did confirm that pro-Kremlin channels had amplified the website’s false stories, further fueling unrest in the UK .

BBC News’ disinformation correspondent Marianna Spring noted: “I did not find any evidence to substantiate claims that Channel3Now’s misinformation could be linked to the Russian state. [A] person claiming to be from Channel3Now‘s management told me that the publication of the false name “shouldn’t have happened, but it was an error, not intentional”.

Although no direct links with that operation have been proven, some observers say this website may be linked to the Srivastava Group, an Indian company that ran a vast network of anti-Pakistan fake news websites, which was unearthed by the EU DisinfoLab in a 2019 investigation.

Although many of the websites that were part of this disinformation network have been disbanded since they were exposed, it is possible that the same people are operating a new set of websites for similar purposes.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

UK

WAIT, WHAT?!

Former Tory rail minister admits failure on reform – and praises train staff and unions

Huw Merriman: ‘These people work hard and should be shown more respect’

Simon Calder
Travel Correspondent

Huw Merriman, the former rail minister, appearing at the transport select committee 

The last Tory rail minister has made a surprise intervention in the row over train driver pay – praising railway staff and saying he understands why Labour ministers chose to “cut a deal” with the train drivers.

Last week the new transport secretary, Louise Haigh, reached an agreement with the train drivers’ union, Aslef, for a “no-strings” pay rise worth 15 per cent over three years.


Members will begin voting on the offer, for which union leaders have urged acceptance, on 28 August. A large majority is expected in favour of the deal.

But within 48 hours of reaching an agreement, Aslef announced fresh strikes by train drivers working for the state-owned East Coast Main Line operator LNER.

The train drivers’ union says drivers will strike each weekend until 10 November following “a breakdown in industrial relations, bullying by management, and persistent breaking of agreements by the company”.

Weekend strikes are planned on LNER services (EPA-EFE)

Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly accused the Labour government of being “played by its union paymasters”.


But in a series of Sunday evening posts on X (formerly Twitter), Huw Merriman expressed respect for rail staff and their unions.

He wrote: “In my time as rail minister, I was fortunate to meet and work with those who crewed trains and stations, managed the railway and worked with pride for their passengers.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to reach an agreement with all unions who were on strike.”

Mr Merriman was appointed rail minister by Rishi Sunak in October 2022, three months after the train drivers began their industrial action.

The government insisted any wage rise was contingent on radical changes to working practices, while the union demanded an unconditional pay increase. Aslef says the last time he met them for talks was in January 2023.


The former minister wrote: “Having tried to bring in workplace reform to improve rail services and, holding my hands up, failed, I can understand why the new government have decided to cut a deal to end the uncertainty and move on with goodwill.

“Whilst it’s legitimate to debate the terms of the deal, the demonisation of train drivers and those on board and at stations, who carry out a difficult and skilled job for the safety of passengers, is completely unfair. These people work hard and should be shown more respect.

“Despite reports, I had a good working relationship with the rail union leaders and recognised their role representing members.


“I hope, by sticking my head up and accepting my part, others can show our rail workforce the respect and recognition they deserve and focus on the future.”

Mr Merriman stood down as MP for Bexhill and Battle at the July 2024 election. His seat was held by the Conservatives.

UK
Wealth tax on super-rich could raise £24billion - enough to fill black hole in public finances

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she will be forced to make 'tough decisions' after the government said it had uncovered a £22billion hole in the public finances

Researchers say the very wealthiest often pay a lower rate of tax than ordinary workers 

By Graham Hiscott

Head of Business

00:01, 19 Aug 2024


A tax on Britain’s super-rich could raise £24billion - more than enough to fill the black hole in the public finances, a report suggests.

Researchers say the very wealthiest often pay a lower rate of tax than ordinary workers. This, along with scale of the national debt after 14 years under the Tories, has led to growing calls for a wealth tax.

It comes ahead of the Budget at the end of October, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves expected to unveil tax rises. Ms Reeves has said she will be forced to make “tough decisions” after the government said it had uncovered a £22billion hole in the public finances. It has already scrapped winter fuel payments for around 10 million pensioners.

Campaign group Tax Justice Network claims a wealth tax based broadly on one used in Spain could raise £1.6trillion globally, and £24billion in the UK. Spain’s system taxes the assets - including property, shareholders and other income - of the richest 0.5% of the country’s taxpayers.

In the UK, any such tax would hit around 258,000 people. The levy would apply only to assets above a certain level - for instance more than around £3million - the Tax Justice Network says.

The rate would progressively increase, from 1.7% through to 3.5% on the very richest 0.05%, of whom there are estimated to be 26,000 people in the UK. The idea comes amid criticism of what today’s report says is a two-tier tax system. It says “collected” wealth – for instance dividends, capital gains and rent – is typically taxed at far lower rates than “earned wealth”, such as salaries

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she will be forced to make 'tough decisions' at the Budget

Mark Bou Mansour, spokesman for the Tax Justice Network, said: “Our tax rules make it easier for the superrich to collect wealth than for the rest of us to earn it. This has let the superrich collect extreme wealth to the point of making our economies insecure and making it scarcely pay to earn a living.

“There’s this idea that billionaires earn wealth like everybody else, they’re just better at it. This is bogus” He added: “We need wealth taxes that end the two-tier treatment of wealth.”

The study also claims a wealth tax would not, as some claim, lead to a mass exodus of wealthy people. It says just 0.01% of the richest households relocated after wealth tax reforms were implemented in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

'Treated like slaves' on Scottish fishing boats

BBC

Gavin Hopkins
Joel Quince travelled from the Philippines to work as a deckhand with TN Trawlers
Chris Clements and Monica Whitlock

Disclosure and File on 4

Dozens of workers from around the world may have been trafficked into the UK to work for a small family-owned Scottish fishing firm, a BBC investigation has revealed.

Thirty-five men from the Philippines, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka were recognised as victims of modern slavery by the Home Office after being referred to it between 2012 and 2020.

The workers were employed by TN Trawlers and its sister companies, owned by the Nicholson family, based in the small town of Annan on the southern coast of Scotland.

The TN Group denied any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking and said its workers were well treated and well paid.


The company was the focus of two long-running criminal investigations but no cases of human trafficking or modern slavery have come to trial, although some of the men waited years to give evidence.

While TN Trawlers’ lead director, Thomas Nicholson, was under active investigation, TN Group companies continued recruiting new employees from across the world.


Joel Quince had been expecting to earn a good income in the UK


Experienced fisherman Joel Quince was 28 when he landed at Heathrow Airport in 2012, thrilled to have secured a job as a deckhand with TN trawlers.

Joel had a young family back home in the Philippines, thousands of miles away. He had been expecting to earn a good income working in the UK. He was to be paid $1,012 (£660) a month for a 48-hour week.

He caught a bus from London to Carlisle, where, he says, he was picked up by the owner’s son, Tom Nicholson Jr.

“On our way to go to the boat he told us: 'You have to give me your documents' - so without hesitation I gave all my documents to them,” he said.

Joel says he was then taken straight to the fishing ground to start working.

But he was surprised to find that his boat was the Philomena rather than the Mattanja, which was the only vessel he was authorised to work on under the terms of his visa. “This was already something fishy for me,” he said

He claims that instead of the 48-hour week he had been told about, he was working 18 hours a day, seven days a week while the Philomena was out fishing.

On his monthly wage of £637, it meant Joel was earning less than the UK minimum wage – although at that time there was no legal requirement to pay it to fishermen like him.

Alamy
The Philomena was one of the company's vessels


Joel was one of about 30 seafarers who arrived in the UK to join TN Trawlers between 2011 and 2013, mostly from the Philippines. They joined dredgers trawling for scallops along the UK coastline.

These dredgers, built in the 1970s and 80s, work by towing metal nets along the seabed. They scrape up shellfish, as well as stones and bycatch – the other marine life which gets caught in the nets. Deckhands throw back the stones and pack the scallops in ice below deck.

Several of the men the BBC spoke to had little or no fishing experience. All describe working shift patterns as gruelling as Joel’s or worse.

Joel said he struggled to get up to go to work because he was so exhausted – but he didn’t complain because his colleagues were also suffering.

“If I stop working, there’s three people suffering, not getting their rest, because the operation keeps continuing. They won’t stop.”

He said there was not enough drinking water on board the vessels, and the crew were reduced to eating tomatoes from the stores to wet their throats. He also said that on one occasion a skipper threw an empty Coke can at the crew.

All the men the BBC spoke to described shortages of proper clothing, food and water.

Monica Whitlock
Jaype Rubi said there was not enough food on board the dredger


Jaype Rubi was a young Filippino when he worked on board the TN dredger Sea Lady in 2012.

“Picking up and throwing out rocks is really tiring,” he said.

“The boat had CCTV, so the skipper could watch us. If we stop, he'd pull down the window and say: ‘Why are you resting’?”

Jaype said it was “super cold” and there was not enough food.

When he spoke to his mum on the phone, he started crying. “I said: 'I want to go home because it's a nightmare working on that boat'.”

Jaype said he was subjected to verbal abuse and was treated “like a slave".

Other men said that, despite arriving in the UK on 48-hour transit visa, they were told to work onshore in the TN yard at Annan, in breach of their visa entitlement.

One man, Jovito Abiero, told the BBC he was sometimes sent to the home of the company owner Tom Nicholson to do gardening.

On 22 August 2012, Joel was aboard the Philomena off the coast of Northern Ireland during rough weather.

He was fixing a broken link in the metal nets when the towing bar swung up. He leapt out of the way - but fell and hit his head on the deck.

His crew mates estimated he was unconscious for up to 15 minutes.


Joel's head was cut when he was knocked unconscious


When Joel woke up with a bandage on his head, he asked his skipper - Tom Nicholson Jr – if they were going to hospital.

“He said: 'No, we're not going to the hospital. We continue fishing',” said Joel.

Joel was given paracetamol by the skipper and his head was bandaged. The Philomena didn’t turn around and head for the port of Troon in Ayrshire until 11 hours after the accident.

Joel got off the Philomena, never to return. He found support at the Fisherman’s Mission, a harbourside charity that supports seafarers.

At that time the mission was run by two sisters, Paula Daly and Karen Burston, who helped Joel get medical help. They had been hearing rumours about TN boats for some time.

“In 2012, it became really quite abundantly clear that we were getting the same message from quite a few different crew,” said Paula.

“There were so many things that were so wrong,” added Karen.


Operation Alto


Police forces on several UK coasts had long been aware of allegations about TN Trawlers.

The company had been prosecuted in 2007 for illegal catches worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Tom Nicholson and TN Trawlers were ordered to pay £473,000 under proceeds of crime laws.

They were also ordered to pay almost £150,000 in fines and costs after the Maritime and Coastguard Agency found a string of defects and safety breaches on vessels between 2009 and 2011.

A 2012 police briefing, seen by the BBC, also noted six Filipino fishermen swam ashore from TN boats and complained of mistreatment.

That year, police in Dumfries and Galloway launched Operation Alto, an investigation into human trafficking and labour abuse at TN Trawlers.

Eighteen former TN Trawlers employees – including Joel – passed into the Home Office’s National Referral Mechanism, a system which identifies and supports victims of human trafficking.
Monica Whitlock
Gideon Mensah was recognised as a victim of modern slavery by the Home Office



Modern slavery is a term that can encompass human trafficking and slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour.

The Home Office defines the essence of human trafficking as a situation where a person is “coerced or deceived into a situation where they are exploited”.

Under this guidance, the men were all given recognition by the Home Office that they had been trafficked.

They were taken to a safe house somewhere in Scotland, then police asked them to stay in the UK to help with further enquiries and act as witnesses when the case came to court.

TN Trawlers continued to recruit, switching its main recruitment operation from East Asia to West Africa.

In June 2013, Gideon Mensah from Ghana signed up to work on the TN scalop dredger Noordzee. He said he soon found himself in the same situation as the Filipinos – overworked and undernourished.

Gideon told the BBC his wages were diverted to his recruitment agent back home, leaving him with £50 cash in hand each month – just £1.66 per day.

He was later recognised as a victim of modern slavery by the Home Office and spent several years on file as a witness for forthcoming prosecutions.
Gavin Hopkins
Vishal Sharma alleged that he was threatened with deportation



In 2017, five years after Joel Quince stepped off the Philomena at Troon harbour, 25-year old Vishal Sharma left India and arrived in London on a transit visa.

He’d signed a contract with a different company to work in the engine room of a Belgian tanker for 15 months.

But his agent in India then told him to travel to a different meeting point in the south of England, and he was taken to the Noordzee.

“I asked: ‘Why am I working there? It’s not my ship… I am not a fisherman'.”

Vishal claims he was threatened with deportation if he didn’t comply.

He spent three weeks on the trawler and says he was never paid.

He claims he worked 22-hour days, had little food, and that his boots began to fall apart in the seawater.
Gavin Hopkins
Gershon Norvivor claimed deckhands would drink the washing water from the ship’s tank



Men continued to arrive from Ghana, including Augustus Mensah and Gershon Norvivor. They both described being put to work in the Nicholsons’ compound before being shipped out, and both ended up working on a vessel called on the Sea Lady.

The BBC has seen payment schedules given to both men upon employment. Both were to earn £850 per month, with an additional cash payment of £50.

Based on a 48-hour working week, they would receive £4.68 an hour.

The conditions they alleged were similar to those described to the BBC by the workers from 2012.

“We were short of food and short of water,” says Gershon.

He claimed deckhands would drink washing water from the ship’s rusty tank. When the tank was empty, they’d melt the ice used to pack the scallops.

“We went to the fish room with a bucket or a sack and you put an ice block in… you put it on the stove… and the guys would make coffee with it.”
Gavin Hopkins
Augustus Mensah said the men were happy to be rescued by the police



On 6 December 2017, a dredge net full of scallops swung and crashed into Augustus’ head and knocked him out. Gershon did what he could to help his friend, rinsing away the blood.

The crew managed to get word to the police onshore in Portsmouth.

“When we were rescued by the police we were very happy,” said Augustus.

Augustus, Gershon and Vishal, along with six other crew members from Ghana, India and Sri Lanka, were taken into the National Referral Mechanism system and recognised by the Home Office as victims of modern slavery. They were asked to stay in the UK as potential witnesses in the ongoing investigation into Thomas Nicholson Snr and TN Trawlers.

After a five-year wait, the case was dropped after some of the men failed to identify suspects during an identity parade.

In a letter from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) this year, Vishal was told that, while prosecutors said there was evidence a crime had been committed, there was not enough evidence to prove the identity of the perpetrator.

Disclosure: Slavery at Sea

A three-year investigation uncovers allegations of modern slavery aboard UK fishing vessels.

Watch on BBC iPlayer or on BBC Scotland at 21:00 on Monday.




The Filipinos’ case finally reached Hamilton Sheriff Court in October 2022, some 10 years after the men were removed from the boats.

Thomas Nicholson Snr and TN Trawlers pleaded guilty to failing to get adequate care for Joel Quince. The Crown accepted his not guilty plea to withholding some of the Filipino crewmen’s passports without reasonable excuse.

Despite the Home Office’s conclusion that the men were trafficking victims, the case did not involve charges of trafficking or modern slavery.

Thomas Nicholson Snr was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay Joel £3,000 in compensation.

Text message exchanges between Nicholson Snr and the vessel’s skipper Tom Nicholson Jr on the day of the accident were read out in court, in which the father instructed his son not to take Joel ashore for medical treatment.

After hearing the messages, Joel told the BBC: “He was a devil with a human image. He doesn’t see me as a person... he doesn’t see us.”




Thomas Nicholson Snr was the director of TN Trawlers, TN Enterprises, Sea Lady Trawlers, and Olivia Jean. The companies owned at least six scallop dredgers.

A spokesman for TN Group said it disputed suggestions that workers were mistreated.

It said it always provided food and accommodation to workers and that they were “always free to come and go when ashore”.

He said: “The overwhelming experience of our workers was that they were well treated and well remunerated. We dispute many of the accounts put to us, in some cases over a decade on.

“We absolutely refute any allegation of modern slavery or human trafficking and our many testimonials and long-term employees are testament to that."

He said the company regretted the delay in bringing Joel Quince ashore for medical treatment.

“We fell short on that occasion. We have accepted responsibility, compensated and we apologise to that individual,” said the spokesman.

“Working conditions on the high seas, sometimes in dangerous waters and in a confined environment, are extremely difficult."
Monica Whitlock
The men meet at the Fisherman's Mission in Troon



The Crown Office said it was fully committed to tackling human trafficking.

“We recognise that the time taken in dealing with these complex and challenging matters has been difficult for those affected,” said a spokesperson.

“COPFS deal with every case on its own individual facts and circumstances and takes action where it assesses there is sufficient admissible evidence that a crime has been committed and it is in the public interest to do so.”

Life after TN Trawlers has seen mixed fortunes for its former crewmen.

Many of those involved in Operation Alto have had their permission to remain in the UK extended, some indefinitely. This enables them to work in the UK and support their families – something they had always wanted.

The men from Ghana interviewed by the BBC have seen their leave to remain expire, meaning they face the possibility of leaving the UK.

However, all the men spoke of their bitterness at working for the company – and their experience of the justice system in the UK.

Joel Quince said his eyes had been opened.

“I see now how it works,” he said.

“This is how your UK law is done... You favour the wealthy people, and you don’t care about the poor.”

File on 4: Invisible Souls

Fishermen from the Philippines, Ghana and Sri Lanka speak out for the first time about how badly they say they were treated by a Scottish fishing company.

Listen on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 on Tuesday 20 August or on BBC Sounds.


Additional reporting by Rachel Coburn and Anton Ferrie