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The Paul Foot Award 2012

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The Paul Foot Award 2012 __________________________________________________________________________________ THE PAUL FOOT AWARD 2012 SHORT LIST ANNOUNCEMENT Embargoed until Monday 18th February 2013 The Judging Panel for The Paul Foot Award 2012 has decided on the following shortlist, in alphabetical order: Tom Bergin Thomson Reuters Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake Sunday Times Ted Jeory Trial by Jeory blog Alexi Mostrous and Fay Schlesinger The Times Claire Newell , Graeme Paton, Holly Watt and Robert Winnett Daily Telegraph Andrew Norfolk The Times Rob Waugh Yorkshire Post Stephen Wright Daily Mail Private Eye magazine and The Guardian newspaper set up the award for investigative or campaigning journalism in memory of Paul Foot, the journalist and great campaigner who died in 2004. The prize of ₤5000 will be presented on Tuesday 26th February at BAFTA in London, with each of the runners up receiving ₤1000. The judges for this year’s Award are, in alphabetical order, Clare Fermont, Bill Hagerty, Ian Hislop, Brian MacArthur (Chair) and Alan Rusbridger. Further information on each of the eight short-listed campaigns, as well as the long-listed entries, is outlined overleaf. For media enquiries, please contact Tracey Jennings, Midas PR Tel: 020 7361 7860 / email: [email protected]. www.private-eye.co.uk Citations on Behalf of the Judges THE SHORT LIST Tom Bergin - Thomson Reuters Starbucks slips the UK tax hook Bringing corporate tax avoidance to the top of the news and political agendas in the UK, Reuters’ first story revealed how Starbucks had used a variety of tactics to cut its UK tax bill. This four-month investigation reported Starbucks had paid no corporation tax in the previous three years - and had paid only £8.6 million on £3.1 billion turnover in the previous 13 years. The fallout from the investigation was significant – from the huge amount of media interest the story attracted, both in the UK and internationally, to Chief Executive Howard Schultz having to discuss the matter on a conference call with analysts. The company’s approval rating amongst UK consumers fell sharply, and tax campaigners targeted the group for peaceful protests in the UK and Ireland. The story also attracted wide political interest. A number of MPs called for the company to be investigated; the head of HMRC faced tough questions when giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in November, and Starbucks’s CFO had to fly in from Seattle to answer questions at another Public Accounts Committee meeting. Before the Starbucks affair, the government had highlighted the tax contribution big business made, and the media had received some criticism from Government members for suggesting companies didn’t pay their fair share. After the story broke, the Prime Minister said he was “not happy” - calling for the HMRC to do more, and that governments should act together to stop tax avoidance. Shortly afterwards, the UK teamed up with Germany to push the G20 group of nations to adopt measures to ensure multinational companies paid their “fair share” of taxes. Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake - Sunday Times Generals for hire This investigation followed a tip off the Sunday Times Insight team received from a former permanent secretary that the Ministry of Defence’s procurement system was being “contaminated” by retired generals lobbying to win multi-million pound defence deals for arms firms, in breach of official rules. During the course of their three month investigation Insight recorded some of our foremost former military leaders talking candidly about their lobbying activities for defence firms in return for large fees. The Sunday Times’ reporters’ fictitious arms company was able, for the first time, to expose the back-scratching that was taking place, and also demonstrate the weakness of the official watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which they reported was ignored by some ex-military bosses. One of the generals had successfully run a secret campaign parliament for a £500 million military programme which would benefit his Israeli defence client at a time when he was supposed to be barred from lobbying. This collaborative effort saw Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, immediately announce an inquiry into the Sunday Times’s allegations; Royal British Legion president Lieutenant- General Sir John Kiszely was forced to resign as president of the Royal British Legion after being caught describing how he used his role to lobby for his defence clients; and the story led to increased pressure to scrap Acoba, replace it with a new independent regulator and introduce a complete ban on lobbying by former public servants - particularly military chiefs. Ted Jeory - Trial by Jeory blog Investigations in Tower Hamlets Trial by Jeory was set up in June 2010 to keep issues in the politics of Tower Hamlets on the news agenda. It has regularly provided splashes for local paper, East London Advertiser and has in the past year seen one of its stories appearing in the Evening Standard, and the blog featured in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs. Recent posts have delved in to a range of issues including an exclusive story on a Labour councillor arrested over an alleged threat to kill an opponent at a council meeting, which subsequently ran in the Evening Standard. Ted Jeory’s long-running investigation into Brick Lane “curry king” Shiraj Haque, one of Lutfur Rahman’s main financial backers during the 2010 mayoral election, saw Haque convicted of re-labelling cheap wine in his restaurants as a more high quality, expensive brand. Another post highlighted discrepancies in invoices submitted by key advisers to the mayor for consultancy work, which led to an in-house fraud investigation, and an additional expenses cover up was exposed in another post which reported on a senior director and her deputy’s £855 first class rail tickets to Manchester on expenses – with a standard return fare of £74 each, which Trial by Jeory showed the council had tried to hide. The stories submitted for the Award highlighted the success of the blog in achieving its main objective - regular posts to keep the council’s executive on its toes. Alexi Mostrous and Fay Schlesinger - The Times Secrets of the tax avoiders The Treasury estimates tax avoidance in Britain cost £7 billion a year. This eight month investigation exposed an ingenious variety of tax avoidance schemes and strategies being used to avoid tax in Britain. Some involved taking salary in the form of loans, others required a leveraged investment into films and music. One even entailed searching for treasure on the seabed. The team undertook several covert recording operations. One targeted Peak Performance, the suppliers of the K2 tax scheme. Mostrous and Schlesinger established K2’s biggest beneficiary was comedian Jimmy Carr, who used it to shelter £3 million a year. Another operation exposed a music-investment scheme used by members of Take That to shelter £26 million. This was an investigation that cut through the intricacies and complicated mechanics of each scheme, many of which had been designed to create the impression of commerciality. Before publishing, The Times spent hours with several accountants and tax QCs to confirm their initial conclusions. Highly complex transactions were then translated in to graphics and intelligible copy for publication. Several front page stories in The Times last summer prompted widespread outrage, with Mostrous and Schlesinger then broadening their investigation to examine tax havens such as Monaco. Since The Times’ stories ran, the Government has increased HMRC powers - and the debate Mostrous and Schlesinger began in to dodgy tax avoidance schemes continues. Claire Newell, Graeme Paton, Holly Watt and Robert Winnett - Daily Telegraph Exam board investigation This undercover investigation produced a series of articles exposing how exam boards are driving down standards and aggressively competing with one another to win business from schools. The team exposed examiners were giving teachers secret advice on how to improve GCSE and A level results, and how teachers paying up to £230 to attend seminars were being advised on questions and what wording to use to obtain higher marks. The undercover team were told by a chief examiner from one of the country’s biggest exam boards that a GCSE test had so little content she could not believe it had been approved by the Government’s official regulators. Following the disclosures the Education Secretary called for an urgent inquiry and Michael Gove has since announced proposals to reform the exams children sit at 16 to ensure standards are raised. This includes scrapping GSCEs for core subjects in favour of eBaccs and allowing only one exam board to administer each subject nationwide to avoid boards gaining business by offering easier exams than their competitors. The official exams regulator, Ofqual, announced that seminars to help teachers boost their pupils’ performance would be banned. The Daily Telegraph team’s investigation could have long term consequences for the British education system and how children are taught and accessed. Andrew Norfolk - The Times Child sexual exploitation Andrew Norfolk’s two year investigation exposing of investigation into a hidden crime model involving the targeting, grooming and sexual exploitation of teenage girls by organised groups of men has prompted two Government-ordered inquiries, a Parliamentary inquiry and a new national action plan on child sexual exploitation. The investigation revealed a crime model that police and care agencies refused to recognise – that most of the victims were white and a majority of those in identified abuse networks were men of Pakistani origin. Andrew Norfolk’s powerful articles revealed how the reluctance of agencies to acknowledge and confront a widespread form of abuse in deprived northern communities had broken families and shattered the lives of some of society’s most vulnerable children. Andrew Norfolk’s reports consistently ran throughout last year, exposing past failures to protect children and prosecute offenders - when detailed intelligence was held about victims and perpetrators.
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