8/22/2019 News Bulletin from Conor Burns MP #110

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In this edition:

Conor Burns MPs DiaryPhoto news:Talbot Heath SchoolPhoto news:

Slades Farm FestivalConor in the papers:Boxing club facing fight forsurvivalPhoto news:Osborne Lodge openingPhoto news:MLS International SchoolConor in the papers:BBC Chief Hall gives cronya 600,000 deal

Photo news:Kingsleigh Primary Schoolvisit Downing StreetPhoto news:Supporting local businessPhoto news:Acres Road and TurbaryPark Avenue CommunityResidents AssociationConor in the papers:1m Lady T funeral billshames leftiesPhoto news:Heathlands Primary Schoolleavers certificatesConor in the mediaReview: Margaret Thatcher:The Authorised BiographyVolume One Not ForTurningPhoto news:Dorset CommunityFoundationHow to contact

Conor Burns MP

Issue 110 Sunday 4th August 2013

Since the past edition, Conor has:

Visited Talbot Heath School to talk to students about the

legacy ofBaroness Thatcher.

Met Chancellor John Vinney to discuss matters relating toBournemouth University.

Attended the Festivalat Slades Farm.

Been quoted in the Bournemouth Echo about Oakmead

Amateur Boxing Club.

Met pupils from Kingsleigh Primary School for a trip down

Downing Street.

Discussed VAT levels with local Wallisdown Road Subway

franchisee Kevin Grahamand staff.

Opened the Osborne Lodge retirement development on Poole

Road.Been quoted in The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph on

events within the BBC.

Held a help and advice surgery to help local people with their

problems at the Triangle.

Presented pupils at Heathlands Primary School with their

leavers certificates.

Met with the Dorset Community Foundation to talk about

ways to promote charitable giving the community.

Attended the South Coast Fashion Week launch party.

Answered questions from students from the Economic

University of Moscow at the MLS International College

Economics Forum.

Been quoted in The Sun regarding the lower than expected

cost ofBaroness Thatchers funeral.

Photo news:

Talbot Heath School

Conor Burns talking to pupils at Talbot Heath School.

Conor Burns with pupils from Talbot Heath School.

Photo news:

Slades Farm Festival

Conor at the Slades Farm Festival.

Conor in the papers:

Boxing club facing fight for survivalThe Bournemouth Echo

Sunday 14th July 2013The future of Oakmead ABC boxing club in Kinson is under threat asits gym will soon be demolished to make way for a 6million housingestate.

Talented young boxers, their parents and the director of the gym arenow appealing for help to find a new venue as they will be homeless infive to eight weeks.Oakmead ABC director John Hamerston said he was promised a newgym by the council and now feels the club has been left completelystranded.He said: The council has gone back on its word and everything hasgone completely out the window, we are homeless.We will go from being the strongest club in the area to being nothing.

We desperately need someone to take us in and keep us going untilwe find a new place.The new housing estate is being built on land at Duck Lane inSeptember and will include a community centre which will becompleted in 18 months.Councillor Robert Lawton, cabinet member for housing, said: Thecommunity centre will be for local residents, so will need to offer awide range of activities to appeal to the people living there.This is what we have always made clear to Mr Hamerston. At no

point did we promise him a new permanent gym.John also feels let down by LeAF Studio School as he said he wastold he would be able to temporarily use the gym there, but this hasalso fallen through. MP for Bournemouth West, Conor Burns hasvoiced his support for the gym, saying the club provides an outlet foryoung men who might otherwise get into trouble.

Teaching kids disciplineLISA Hopkins, the mother of 15-year-old boxer Billy Harley, said theclub helped keep youngsters on the straight and narrow.She said: I know my son would have gone off the rails if it wasnt forthat club. He has dedicated himself entirely to it over the last fewyears and he is hoping to be selected for the next Olympics.Ex-world boxing champion Cornelius Carr and top boxer KevinMitchell are also supporting the cause.Cornelius said: This gym gets kids off the street and teachesdiscipline and respect.

Photo news:Osborne Lodge opening

Conor addressing residents at Osborne Lodge retirementdevelopment.

Conor cutting the ribbon to open Osborne Lodge.

Conor and the plaque commemorating the opening.

Photos courtesy of Trevor Warr www.trevorwarrphotogrpahy.co.uk.

Photo news:

MLS International School

Conor Burns with Russian students from the EconomicUniversity of Moscow at MLS International School.

Conor in the papers:

BBC Chief Hall gives cronya 600,000 dealAlasdair Glennie, The Daily Mail

Friday 19th July 2013

The head of the BBC handed a 600,000 contract to a friend, itemerged last night.Tony Hall has appointed Suzanne Heywood to lead a two-monthreview into making the corporation a simpler place to work.He worked with Lady Heywood, who is married to Cabinet SecretarySir Jeremy, at the Royal Opera House before he joined the BBC asdirector-general.Her study with global management consultants McKinsey is not

expected to cut the BBCs headcount or save money.Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Commons public accountscommittee, said the links between the pair raised very seriousquestions as to how McKinsey beat its rivals to the contract.Threatening to call Lord Hall before the committees next BBC hearingin September, the senior Labour MP said: If these questions are notadequately answered we will have to investigate them ourselves.

Its a lot of money. If you are going to pay consultants you have to gothrough the appropriate mechanisms and not use your friends.

With all eyes on the BBC at the moment I cant understand why theydont appreciate that everything has to be visibly above board.Conor Burns, a Tory MP on the culture, media and sport committee,has written to Lord Hall asking him to publish all the documentsrelating to the McKinsey contract.Tony Hall was brought in as director-general with a clear mandate toput the days of murky relationships and mutual back scratching at theBBC behind them, he said.

It is vital if his credibility is to be upheld that the BBC now urgentlypublish the tender documents relating to the awarding of this contract,

so the licence fee payer can see beyond doubt that this contract wasawarded on merit and not on the basis of personal favours.He added: It seems extraordinary when you have so many highly paidexecutives that you need to bring in highly paid consultants to do a jobthey should be able to do themselves.It is a very poor use of licence fee payers money. The only way it willbe good value for money is if the consultants recommend firing one ofthe BBCs senior managers. One of their salaries could pay for thewhole exercise.

A partner in New York-based McKinsey & Company, Lady Heywood is

also a director of the Royal Opera House in London, where Lord Hallwas chief executive from 2001 until his switch to the BBC in April. TheBBC insists McKinsey was hired after a competitive process.

Announcing the plan, Lord Hall said: I want, as far as I can, to turnmore of the organisation toward the programmes and our services,and less on the other things a big organisation like this does.We all know that working in matrices is a very complex way ofoperating. We can make it simpler for people to take responsibility forwhat they do.

I hope that by this time next year, I will be standing before staff and

licence fee payers with a simpler organisation, where responsibilitiesare much clearer.

McKinsey was on a shortlist of four management consultancy firmsbefore Lord Hall made the final decision to award it the contract.Earlier this year, he was criticised for appointing another formercolleague to a top post at the BBC on a 395,000 salary. AnneBulford, who was Channel 4s chief operating officer, was handed therole of managing director of finance and operations without the jobbeing advertised. Miss Bulford spent three years with the Royal OperaHouse as director of finance and business affairs before joiningChannel 4 in 2005.Lord Hall knows her from their time together at the Royal Opera andalso from his time as deputy chairman at Channel 4. When heappointed her, he sent an email to staff saying she was a directappointment rather than an advertised one because he believed hertalent and experience make her the best person for this role.Her appointment came shortly after Lord Hall announced he had hiredformer Labour culture secretary James Purnell as strategy and digitalchief on 295,000 a year.Like Miss Bulford he was appointed without the role being advertised.

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance, said:Theres no doubt that the BBC needs to simplify its labyrinthinestructures, but licence fee payers will be dismayed that yet againMcKinsey is raking in a massive sum in consultancy fees.

Given the vast sums that the BBC top brass are paid, you could beforgiven for thinking that they ought to be best placed to take a lead insorting out their own organisation. At a public accounts committeehearing into the BBC severance payments scandal this month, MPssaid the corporations financial management was akin to corporatefraud and cronyism.

In 2011, the BBC was criticised for spending more than 8million onmanagement consultants in just one year.

Last year, former director-general George Entwistle hired accountancyfirm Deloitte to help slash the number of managers at the corporation.

A BBC spokesman said: McKinsey & Company were appointedbecause they were the best organisation to do the job.A number of companies took part in a competitive tender process andwere assessed and shortlisted before the director-general wasinvolved.

The final decision was then unanimously taken by a committeecomprising representatives from the BBCs strategy and financedivisions and the director-general.

Photo news:

Kingsleigh Primary Schoolvisit Downing Street

Conor at No. 10 Downing Street with pupils fromKingsleigh Primary School.

Photo news:

Supporting local business

Conor with local Subway franchisee and staff.

Photo news:

Acres Road and Turbary Park Avenue

Community Residents Association

Conor and Margaret Sunderani of the Acres Road and TurbaryPark Avenue Community Residents Association present local

campaigner Ray Willis with a certificate of special recognition forhis community work.

Conor in the papers:

1m Lady T funeral bill shames leftiesTom Newton Dunn, The Sun

Monday 29th July 2013Lady Thatchers funeral cost just 1,205,809 a TENTH of theamount claimed by Lefties.It works out at 1.9p per person when divided by the UKs totalpopulation of 62million.Critics of our first female PM including Labour MPs insisted itwould cost around 10million.One of the former Tory leaders close friends, MP Conor Burns, said:Lady T would have been delighted that, even in death, she has

proved the Left wrong.Cabinet Office officials say the event on April 17 came to 261,976 including the service at St Pauls and the parade featuring 800 militarystaff plus the 943,833 security operation.The final figure is also a lot lower than the initial 3.6million estimate.Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude was pleased the outlandishfigures had been disproved.

A Whitehall source added: The funeral was a fitting tribute to anoutstanding Prime Minister.

Photo news:

Heathlands Primary School leavers

certificates

Conor with pupils from Heathlands Primary School following thepresentation of leavers certificates.

Conor in the media

Review: Margaret Thatcher: The AuthorisedBiography Volume One Not For TurningConor Burns, The House Magazine

Friday 12th

July 2013Such people do not look back, Charles Moore observes of MargaretThatcher in the preface to the first volume of his authorised biographyof her. It is a tour de force insightful, compelling and, perhapsremarkably, full of new material about the woman of whom so muchhas been written before.I was perhaps first struck by the anti-Catholicism of her father

Alderman Roberts, He is quoted saying: No, no, no, I would never putmy foot in a Catholic Church. And later, writing to his other daughterMuriel that: I should be grieved beyond measure if the R/Cs got holdof Margaret.

What he would have made of her authorised biographer being aCatholic and me visiting her most Sundays after Mass at WestminsterCathedral can only be guessed. Mr Roberts comes over as perhaps amore limited man than Lady T conveyed. Denis remembered his firstintroduction: The conversation was a bit sticky. Eventually Margaretsays, Father, Denis does like a drink. Very long faces, long huntthrough the house, finally blow dust off a bottle of sherry. Later LadyT is quoted telling Muriel that she will be sending her father to staywith her as he appeared to have outstayed his welcome at theThatchers in Kent. Not the misty sentiment of Lady Ts later years.

It is perhaps her childhood and university years where there is thefreshest material. An early sign of her logical and literal mind isrelayed in a commend to a friend, where schoolgirl Margaret says: Ihave worked it out scientifically that in order to fly, an angel wouldneed a six-foot-long breastbone to bear the weight of its wings.Perhaps it was in part this earnestness that led a senior figure fromSomerville College to make the acidic observation that: We used toentertain a good deal at weekends but she didnt get invited. She hadnothing to contribute, you see. Much later Somervilles warmth,through the voice of Janet Vaughan, had not increased when shesaid: Were not proud of Margaret. We found it a bit galling that shebecame Prime Minister, that she married Denis and got his moneyand then had the twins in one go.

About a third of the way through the book Moore makes the claim thatalmost nothing in her programme, or in her published thoughts,indicated much of the political figure that she would become. He iscorrect. Indeed, there are touchingly funny stories of her naivetywhere in celebration of the Woolwich West by-election during a visit toWest Germany she expressed her pleasure by making a V forVictory sign to the cameras. To the dismay of [Gordon] Reece, shedid the sign the wrong way round.The most insightful parts of the book cover the early years of Lady Tspremiership. If one sentence sums up her approach it is this: I loathethis modern tendency to try and find a form of words that takes themeaning out of anything that you may say. This was combined withher worry that she was being conned by aristos.One of her New Years resolutions was that I should not depart frommy convictions by one iota nor should I fear the reaction of the so-called Liberal Establishment to what I have to say. This high-mindedconviction was translated into small-scale action. One classic examplewas when Mrs T returned home to find 32 new typewriters in thereception of No. 10. She issued the order: You can keep three. Theother 29 went back.

Also striking was the way she acted as Prime Minister as well as

leader of the opposition to her own Government. Moore relays oneoccasion when there was a rebellion against the Government. Theminister responsible for the bill was surprised to find the PMs PPScalling out to conservative MPs from the No Lobby: This way for thePMs amendment.This book is packed with gripping and amusing stories, as well asbeing brilliantly written and researched with a thoroughness of whichLady T would surely have approved. It tells the story of Thatcherismwhich as quoted, was never a philosophy, but a disposition of mindand character embodied in a highly unusual woman.

As Moore says in his preface: People are fascinated, appalled,delighted by her. As she passes from current controversy into history,this interest is undimmed. It is with that fascination and interest thatwe await Volume Two.

Photo news:

Dorset Community Foundation

Conor Burns with Dorset Community Foundation ChairmanAshley Rowlands.

Three ways to contact Conor Burns MP:

By Phone: 020 7219 7021

By email: conor.burns.mp@parliament.uk

By post: Conor Burns MPHouse of CommonsLondon SW1A 0AA

www.conorburns.com

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Conor Burns MP

News Bulletin from Conor Burns MP #110

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