SNP MP IS COLD-CALL HYPOCRITE
Nationalist who backed crackdown on rogue telesales firms has links to funeral business at centre of probe by communications watchdog
A LEADING Nationalist MP who campaigned for a crackdown on nuisance phone calls is linked to a company which has been investigated for its coldcalling practices. Ian Blackford, the SNP’s pensions spokesman, was last night accused of hypocrisy after the Scottish Daily Mail learned of the high-level probe by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Mr Blackford, who ousted former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy in an ugly General Election battle, is chairman of the Golden Charter Trust, earning him the equivalent of £777 an hour for his lucrative second job.
The trust was set up to hold, invest and administer the money received by Golden Charter Ltd, a separate entity which is one of the country’s largest independent providers of funeral plans.
Vulnerable pensioners, including an elderly woman who was battling cancer for the third time, have complained about being targeted by callers from Golden Charter Ltd trying to sell funeral plans.
The ICO is now ‘monitoring’ the firm until the end of January in the wake of complaints, and previously threatened enforcement action if improvements
were not forthcoming. But Mr Blackford, a former investment banker, signed an ‘early day motion’ in the Commons in June condemning the practice of cold-calling.
The motion, lodged by one of his SNP colleagues, states: ‘Too many members of the public are bombarded with nuisance calls and texts which is a huge issue of concern.’
It went on to warn against the abuse of privacy by ‘unscrupulous businesses’.
Mr Blackford, MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, was an ‘independent trustee’ with Glasgowbased Golden Charter Trust when he entered parliament last May, earning £4,146.92 quarterly for eight hours work. He had held that post since 2007. But he has since been appointed chairman, and is paid £6,219.60 quarterly for eight hours work. Mr Blackford also receives £1,429.82 per day for any additional work with the firm.
Last night, Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser said: ‘This is a now too familiar example of an SNP MP saying one thing in Parliament and adhering to quite another in life outside Westminster.’
Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur said: ‘The public, including vulnerable people in my own constituency, are being hounded by companies looking to exploit them. The last thing they need is to be harassed by yet another firm with links to an MP allegedly “standing up” for consumer rights Golden Charter Ltd needs to take on board every single recommendation from the ICO. As for Mr Blackford, he should practise what he preaches and ensure the company ceases this despicable practice.’
The ICO is the UK’s independent regulatory office and has the power to investigate cold-calling cases – both live and automated calls. It can fine firms which break the law, with one company hit with a £200,000 penalty in 2015.
Last year, London-based Golden Charter Ltd was given an amber rating for ‘concerns about compliance’, with a warning enforcement action was possible. It has moved to a green rating for ‘good improvements demonstrated’.
An ICO spokesman said: ‘The ICO has received a number of complaints about Golden Charter Ltd. The company agreed to make changes to its marketing campaigns based on advice from the ICO and is currently being monitored until the end of January.’
A total of nine complaints were made about the company.
The Daily Mail has campaigned for the Government to clamp down on unscrupulous cold callers as it emerged in 2015 the ICO had received more than 180,000 complaints about nuisance calls in the last year, up from 160,000 two years earlier. This newspaper revealed the immoral fundraising tactics of a firm representing organisations including the NSPCC, the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Macmillan.
The resulting outcry sparked a rapid crackdown on the industry and questions in Parliament. The early day motion by Nationalist MP Patricia Gibson, signed by Mr Blackford, called on the UK Government to ‘look at whether the rules around how our data is collected, used and traded needs to be tightened’.
A Golden Charter Ltd spokesman said: ‘Discussions with the ICO largely refer to data which we purchased from third parties. We exchanged correspondence in the summer and we subsequently consulted our legal advisers.
‘We asked the Direct Marketing Association of which we are a member and took their advice on board, even engaging with their legal helpdesk. We have always believed we were adopting the recommended best practice.
‘The ICO wrote to us in mid-November reporting an increase in our complaint levels for October. We investigated and supplied a summary of our findings.
‘The ICO concluded that the complaints might be as a result of the manner in which we were obtaining leads via “survey” calls. The ICO did not request a response but did draw our attention to the direct marketing guidance on their website. That advice further changed our interpretation of what is required and we moved to adopt the additional suggestions of the regulator.’
An SNP spokesman said: ‘The company received a small number of complaints and changed the way they operate to resolve the issue.’
‘Should practise what he preaches’
HYPOCRISY is a despicable trait in a politician as it strikes at the very heart of the trust between electorate and elected.
Voters are entitled to take a dim view of a politician who says one thing while doing the other. Anyone drawn from the ‘do as I say and not as I do’ school ought not to be in public office.
What, then, to make of Ian Blackford, MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber?
The former investment banker signed an early-day motion in the Commons – lodged by a fellow SNP member – which condemned that bane of modern life, coldcalling by ‘unscrupulous businesses’.
Now we report today that Mr Blackford has links to a firm which has been recently probed over cold-calling.
He is paid handsomely as chairman of the Golden Charter Trust, set up to administer the money paid to Golden Charter Ltd.
Golden Charter Ltd provides funeral plans and is the subject of complaints – including one from an elderly woman battling cancer – about its methods and is the subject of a probe by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Is Mr Blackford’s stance in the Commons that of a conviction politician straining every sinew to improve the lot of his constituents? Or was it simply posturing?
All this must be set against the empty strutting of the SNP, a party who told us they represented ‘a new kind of politics’. That has been exposed as so much hot air by a series of incidents. Two Nationalist MPs remain suspended while their financial affairs are probed.
Questions still surround how access to the party’s upper echelons was arranged for the promoters of T in the Park. The highly profitable private firm walked away with a substantial amount of taxpayers’ cash.
And there is MP Phil Boswell who, like party leader Nicola Sturgeon, condemned tax avoidance in public. But privately Mr Boswell minimised his own bill. As part of the SNP’s whiter-than-white propaganda assault, MP Pete Wishart foolishly declared in Parliament: ‘No SNP Member has a second job, a directorship or a place on a company. Our responsibilities here are our sole concern and our only responsibility.’
That, too, has been exposed as self-serving sanctimony.
All this damages politics and does nothing to close the yawning chasm between public and politicians.
The SNP have, like all the rest of us, feet of clay. But what sticks in the public’s craw is their infuriating unwillingness to admit problems with the party, let alone do anything about them.