I note a right wing time waster has just put in this request under Freedom of Information rules:
There should be a lot to supply, but almost all on the workings of committees with which I have been involved.
On a personal basis, I suspect there will be remarkably little to relate.
I have a strong suspicion the answer will be that it will be too costly to supply.
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I assume that although the request appears to include seeing your tax return, they are not obliged to supply him with it.
Tax returns do not go to HM Treasury and are not published
Indeed. Michael, there is an absolute exemption within the FOI Act for certain personal details like that.
Mind you, if tax returns were published (as they are in that bastion of obvious pinko communism, the USA), that would bring to light, and curb, and awful lot of tax avoidance and sharp practice. I suspect Richard has nothing to fear on that score.
The only places where this happens is Scandinavia
I have not called for it as I do not think UK society is ready for it
I would have nothing to fear
“I would have nothing to fear”
Then why not publish and put to bed all the rumours I keep reading?
Because I do not call for such publication
And because you’re a troll
And because I have heard no rumours
Coincidently (or maybe not) I ‘ve been hearing all sorts of rumours about someone called Eileen for some time now.
Is the Eileen posting on here the same Eileen that I’ve been hearing rumours about or could it be an entirely different Eileen?
I guess the only way to find out and ‘put this to bed’ is to demand the Eileen posting on here to publish every salient fact about themselves. After all, if you’ve nothing to hide. ……
It’s a good game this i’nt it?
Is FOI just a Government/Public Sector thing or can individuals acting asked interested parties be asked for details of their contacts with other organisations?
Just the government and some agencies
Noel Scoper has also made similar FoI requests to HMRC, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the BBC: see https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/noel_scoper
All a bit bizarre, considering how open you are about how you’re trying to influence policy.
Bizarre!
The BBC will be fun – quite a lot of payments for £30 for appearing on the radio
HMRC, the off consultation submission
PM’s office? The same, and my declining all offers of honours (I jest)
And that’s it, I guess
What a complete waste of time
On the other hand he could try reading your blog.
He has been on here for some time.
Then he should come and explain himself in due course
FoI like freedom of speech seems to me to be something that is for the general good and as such we accept that we do not like along with that we like, I’m sure you would not hesitate to use the system (or even have used the system) to obtain information to support your cause as would any sensible person.
FoI is under enough of an attack from the establishment without the public adding to criticism. Yes there will be stupid requests (plans for an alien invasion was one I recall), but that is the price to pay for the system.
Wondering why he’s after info you and saying he’s wasting his time is all well and good, complaining about frivolous FoI is another matter.
I worry about frivolous FoI because it helps this government make the case that it is all a waste of time
Anyone in the gov’t will know this is frivolous too
Mr Scoper’s request was obviously too vague for it to be answerable.
But if a person is involved in any public activity, the public has a legitimate right to know:
1. How that person was selected.
2. For what purpose.
3. For non-employees on committees, boards etc, minutes of meetings, except where specified exemptions apply (e.g. genuine commercial sensitivity).
4. Records of gifts and hospitality.
This goes for employees, contractors, members of committees etc. Everybody.
That isn’t frivolous, it’s important. The fact the person making the request is your enemy doesn’t affect his/her right to know. That person should never be ridiculed in public as a time waster — unprofessional in my view.
If we get away from that, the system becomes like a cosy club. That’s where corruption starts. Easy to go down that slippery slope.
The fact the person making the request is your enemy doesn’t affect his/her right to know. That person should never be ridiculed in public as a time waster — unprofessional in my view.
I don’t think these sentences make sense as part of the same paragraph. Don’t you think professionalism – a rather strange ideology – is a code that rises above the notion of having enemies? The fact that one does have an enemy should mean they do NOT have a right to know. The public has a right to know public things but I’m not sure the enemy of someone should consider themselves the agent for a public purpose (as there seems to be some ‘heat’ in all of this, I should point out that you used the word enemy and I am analysing matters from that point onwards. Although I’ve been reading this blog for many years I have no idea who NS is).
To finish:there is another form of corruption that leads/led to phonehacking and the bribing of public officials that stems from the notion of seeing enemies in the public sphere. In my view, in the “res publica” the citizenry have the duty not to be corrupted by their own particular emotions but most of the fourth estate (another curious term) failed this duty a long time ago.
Freedom of Information legislation is precious, and any efforts to curb it should be regarded with suspicion.
However, requests such as the one above are so broad, and so lacking in any detail, that they are often characterised as “fishing expeditions”.
To say that such expeditions can be a waste of time is hardly controversial; particularly if the source of the request is a de facto time-waster known to this site.
As a frivolous aside, the scrabble player in me immediately sought an anagram for our friend’s name.
Necropoles – a valid scrabble word of indeterminate meaning in English; French for cemeteries (cities of the dead).
Of course it may not be an AKA at all… but he doesn’t show up anywhere apart from this site.
He features on some right wing trolling sites
I agree your point of differentiation on FoI: it was that which I also sought to make