Raytheon sponser Security Policy!

This week the Government launched its long awaited National Security Strategy. Last year, ippr established the independent Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, Co-Chaired by Lord Paddy Ashdown and Lord George Robertson. The commission secretariat recently published The New Front Line, which analyses the key changes taking place in the national and international security landscape.
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IPPR boast in their latest newsletter ..party_Commission_preparing_an_independent_national_security_strategy_for_the_UK._It_is
co-chaired by Lord_Robertson and Lord_Ashdown
Another member is Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty_and former home office lawyer!

Sponsored by .....Ippr would like to thank EDS and Raytheon
The IPPR think-tank published on the 13 Feb, 'The New Front Line: Security in a changing world' from the ippr Commission on National Security, Working Paper No. 1 written by Ian Kearns and Ken Gude. This paper is on British Security Policy and claims to analyse the key changes taking place in the national and international security landscape and assesses their implications for policy, examining the context within which a national security strategy must now be forged. As a result, they claim that it becomes clear that the contemporary security landscape is about much more than terrorism alone. Umm... Yes it is a rather turgid and jargon riddled document. As Henry Porter pointed out this policy work has been sponsored by Raytheon who proudly boast of their support for IPPR.

This is Raytheon Arms Dealers of cluster munitions fame who have been excluded on ethical grounds from the vast Norwegian pension fund. This is the Raytheon who won a 10-year contract to ‘improve’ UK border controls and who the government gave a contract addendum worth £92 million on 12 Feb. Raytheon one of the Metrix consortium who the government wants to run military training not only for British service personnel, but those from any regime or private military company that can fork out the ready cash at St Athan in Wales where there have been allegations of pork-barreling. Raytheon has received over £750,000 in the last four years from Invest Northern Ireland. Just how much have they received in Wales we don't know.

Ippr’s Commission on National Security in the 21st Century last May sponsored by Raytheon ‘Governments in any case no longer own and control all of the relevant and necessary expertise and assets required in the making of an effective security policy…. private businesses …add value to the policy making process’, ‘

Who wrote this? Ian Kearns is Deputy Chair of the commission on National Security - Director of IPPR and is currently leading the institutes international and security programme. He has a wide range of experience in the private sector as a former Director of the Global Government Industry practice at Electronic Data Systems (EDS)! EDS another member of the Metrix Consortium.
Remember the collapse of the Child Support Agency, and the years of misery its incompetence brought to mothers and children, was due in large part to the fact that its half-billion-pound computer system, designed by EDS, never worked properly. In addition to the EDS debacle at the child support agency and the Inland Revenue's Tax Credits systems there is the disastrous unworkable MOD new computerised payroll system. EDs is overhauling ALL the UK’s defence IT. It is astounding that the MoD is prepared to reward failure by handing over billions more pounds of taxpayers' money to a consortium that has failed to deliver what it said it would time and time again.

So a former director at EDS is just the person to advise us on the role of the private sector and Security in a changing world.

OK for the IPPR, & UK not to be ethical!!
Note that ....Ireland's pension fund to exclude munitions-report Reuters UK - "I saw at first hand on my visit to Lebanon last year the havoc that cluster bombs can cause," Ahern told the paper. "These small bomblets can look like ...DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's National Pensions Reserve Fund plans to withdraw 27 million euros (21 million pounds) of investment from six firms involved in the production of cluster munitions, Irish media reported on Wednesday.The NPRF, charged with securing funds for pension and welfare costs of an ageing population after 2025, followed the example of Norway's pension fund, known as the "oil fund", which aims to be a world leader in ethical investment.The NPRF plans to stop investing in five U.S. companies: Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Alliant Techsystems and L-3 Communications, and France's Thales, the Irish Times quoted a spokesman as saying.The fund's proposal follows a list of firms excluded by Norway's $387 billion (193 billion pound) fund, after pressure from Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern, who is campaigning for a ban on cluster munitions, the Irish Times said."I saw at first hand on my visit to Lebanon last year the havoc that cluster bombs can cause," Ahern told the paper. "These small bomblets can look like decorations or toys and, as a result, children are very vulnerable to them."