Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the PM - UK Politics - UK

* Claiming they have used their access to Downing Street to get David Cameron to speak to the Chinese premier on behalf of one of their business clients within 24 hours of asking him to do so; * Boasting about Bell Pottinger's access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, to Mr Cameron's chief of staff Ed Llewellyn and to Mr Cameron's old friend and closest No 10 adviser Steve Hilton; * Suggesting that the company could manipulate Google results to "drown" out negative coverage of human rights violations and child labour; * Revealing that Bell Pottinger has a team which "sorts" negative Wikipedia coverage of clients; * Saying it was possible to use MPs known to be critical of investigative programmes to attack their reporting for minor errors. In Uzbekistan, child labour is used in cotton fields to fulfil state quotas and the country also has a terrible human rights record: the think tank Freedom House put it on its 2011 list of the "Worst of the Worst" repressive regimes.

Undercover police had children with activists | UK news Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal. In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades – were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children's mothers for many years. One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner. The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child's mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother's political activities and life. Until now it was not known that police had secretly fathered children while living undercover.

Giant grain firm buys up all British wheat in ‘unprecedented’ purchase Britain’s most powerful grain company jointly owned by Cargill and Associated British Foods bought and took delivery of all the available UK feed wheat last month. The series of purchases by Frontier Agriculture, described by a number of traders as ‘unprecedented’, will reignite growing concerns among food manufacturers and campaign groups over the potential for giant trading companies and financiers with deep pockets to profit and even distort commodity markets. Traders told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that Frontier bought all available May Futures contracts on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe) in the period running up to the tender date in the last week of April. Feed wheat sets the benchmark price for wheat used in food. ‘The UK government has turned a blind eye and has aimed to block European proposals for regulating commodity markets that would bring this type of profiteering to a halt. ‘We are not speculators’, said Duffy. Backfired?

Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ | UK news The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes. The top secret payments are set out in documents which make clear that the Americans expect a return on the investment, and that GCHQ has to work hard to meet their demands. "GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight," a GCHQ strategy briefing said. The funding underlines the closeness of the relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency. But it will raise fears about the hold Washington has over the UK's biggest and most important intelligence agency, and whether Britain's dependency on the NSA has become too great. In one revealing document from 2010, GCHQ acknowledged that the US had "raised a number of issues with regards to meeting NSA's minimum expectations". As well as the payments, the documents seen by the Guardian reveal:

The police’s defence in the Miranda judicial review Here’s the Metropolitan Police’s grounds – drafted by Jason Beer QC of 5 Essex Court and Ben Brandon and Ben Watson, both of 3 Raymond Buildings – for resisting David Miranda’s judicial review claim in the Administrative Court this week. Miranda is challenging the police’s use of powers under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. My view on the police legal arguments is below, after the viewer. Click on the bottom left of the viewer to see the document in fullscreen view, with my more detailed comments highlighted in yellow. <a href=" Police’s Grounds for Resisting the Claim (PDF)</a><br /><a href=" Police’s Grounds for Resisting the Claim (Text)</a> It’s the police arguments on the “improper purpose” aspect of the case that are most interesting.