Dr Paul Stephenson: Hundreds remember civil rights campaigner
At the memorial, The Berkeley Singers, directed by Marie Lee, sang O Radiant Dawn, to get the event under way.Bristol's Lord Lieutenant Peaches Golding OBE was among those who attended. Paul Boateng, a member of the House of Lords, told those gathered: "a mighty tree has fallen"."None of us would be here if Paul hadn't refused to give up his seat when they told him to, if he hadn't faced the humiliation of arrest, the finger printing, the day in court, none of us would be here," he said.
Harewood added: "He really stood up to bigotry, racism and his fight still today has a lasting legacy."Also paying tribute at the service, Lord Simon Woolley said: "We know about Rosa Parks, we need to know about Paul Stephenson."He added Marvin Rees' election as the first black mayor in Bristol was "due to the work" Dr Stephenson achieved. He also called for a statue of Dr Stephenson to be built.Sir Trevor Phillips, writer and former politician, also spoke at the memorial."This man was a warrior, but he never entered the arena with rage or fear in his eyes," he said.
Earlier this week, Radio Bristol met three people who knew Dr Stephenson personally at The Bay Horse pub in central Bristol. It was here the campaigner attracted national attention when he was arrested after refusing to leave without being served - an event that is now marked by a plaque on its wall. Lilleith Morrison, who co-wrote Dr Stephenson's autobiography Memoirs of a Black Englishman, described him as "our Martin Luther King". Ms Morrison said: "Everyone's got equal rights now, theoretically at least, and it all came about because of what happened in the bus boycott and in this pub. "This pub now represents a way of keeping that story alive, and people can come in and read about it and acknowledge what Paul did. "It's a sort of line of communication from the past to now." She added Dr Stephenson "loved telling" a joke about being the only person to be granted Freedom of the City of Bristol who had spent a night in jail.
Dr Stephenson, the son of an African father and mixed race British mother, moved to Bristol in 1962.The boycott of the Bristol Omnibus Company he organised overturned a ban on people from ethnic minorities working on buses in the city, while his pub sit-in also gained nationwide attention. He left the city in the early 1970s for London, but on his return in 1992 helped set up the Bristol Black Archives Partnership, which protects and promotes the history of African-Caribbean people in the city.
He was made an OBE in 2009 for his services to equal opportunities and to community relations - a moment filmmaker Rob Mitchell described as "no doubt one of the proudest moments of his life". "He would have been finally accepted by England itself, his country of birth, the country he loved very dearly, and that was his ultimate form of acceptance I think," Mr Mitchell added.
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The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
Blue gold: how a Ghana mine's troubles hit workers and UK politicians – and could cost British taxpayers
In late 2020, amid the economic maelstrom unleashed by Covid-19, there were few better places to be than sitting on top of a goldmine. In Ghana, the west African country once called the Gold Coast by British colonisers, the Bogoso-Prestea mine was producing 4,000 ounces of the precious metal a month, valued at $6m (£4.5m). As gold prices reached record highs, London-based Blue International Holdings – a seasoned investor in African energy projects, pounced to buy the mine for $95m. Blue International promised 'attractive financial returns while having a positive impact on the communities and countries in which it operates, and the planet as a whole', according to its website. It enjoyed the backing of a trio of British political heavyweights, including two members of the House of Lords and a government minister. Yet, a few short years later, its future appears to have tarnished. And, as the Guardian reveals now, the venture appears to have resulted in collateral damage to everyone from Ghanaian mineworkers to a member of the British royal family, a billionaire backer of the GB News TV channel and, possibly, UK taxpayers. 'Blue Gold is a scam' read a placard, as protesters, backed by a brass band, voiced their discontent in February 2024. It was the latest in a string of demonstrations as miners and suppliers in the resource-rich Ashanti gold belt demanded to know why they were seeing no benefit from the precious metal buried beneath their feet. Four years earlier, when Blue International arrived, the future had seemed promising. The company boasted a track record of African investment stretching back to 2011, steered by its co-founders Andrew Cavaghan and Mark Green, professional investors with financial pedigree. As well as its new goldmine in southern Ghana, the company also owned a promising hydroelectric power project in Sierra Leone, a partnership with the government in Freetown. It came with a phalanx of prestige backers, drawn from the British political and business elite. Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British army, and Lord Triesman, a Foreign Office minister with responsibility for UK diplomatic relations in Africa, served on its advisory board. So, too, did Philip Green, who was rebuilding his reputation after the implosion of the government outsourcer Carillion, which collapsed during his time as chair in 2018. John Glen, a Treasury minister between 2018 and 2023, held shares in the company. The UK taxpayer was also significantly exposed. In early 2024, it emerged that the Treasury had lent Blue International £3.3m of taxpayers' money via the 'Future Fund' the previous year. Glen, the MP for Salisbury in Wiltshire, said he was not aware of the loan application when he served at the Treasury and there is no suggestion that he did. The Future Fund was designed, in the words of then chancellor Rishi Sunak, to support 'start-ups and innovative firms' survive the pandemic by extending them loans that converted into equity. In this case, the money supported a company engaged in extracting valuable minerals from African soil. In mining, all can appear calm on the surface, even as things fall apart below ground. By the time British taxpayers' money was pumped into Blue International, its Ghanaian venture was on the brink of a financial collapse whose tremors reached from rural west Africa to the City of London. Within two years of Blue International's takeover, operations at Bogoso-Prestea had been shut down several times, according to corporate filings and contemporary reports. Mineworkers blamed lack of investment from Blue, which owned and operated the mine via a local subsidiary, Future Global Resources (FGR). Lack of output choked off cashflow and increased costs, as equipment failed or required maintenance, according to one corporate filing. FGR failed to pay local suppliers, including the Ghanaian state electricity company, while mineworkers were left out of pocket, according to filings, fuelling local protests. 'It had devastating consequences,' said Abdul-Moomin Gbana, the general secretary of the Ghana Mineworkers' Union (GMWU). He said workers' salaries went unpaid for months, hitting the community hard. 'General conditions declined because they had no income. The communities virtually became ghost towns,' he said. 'It became obvious that if nothing was done, there was no way there could be a future for the mine.' Blue Gold declined to answer questions about the claims of unpaid wages, and directed questions to FGR. FGR did not respond to requests for comment. Eventually, in 2024, the Ghanaian government issued an ultimatum. Blue International must restore the mine to working production or hand back its lease, the right to own and operate the site. The company tried to issue bonds – a form of IOU – in Ghana to raise cash that could be invested in bringing the mine back to production but the fundraising effort stalled. The directors behind Blue International, Cavaghan and Green, restructured the debt-laden mine's ownership, moving it into a new entity called Blue Gold, also owned and incorporated by them, as part of a plan to raise new investment in the US. Despite this, in late 2024, the government of Ghana made good on its threat to seize back the Bogoso-Prestea lease. A legal challenge from the company failed earlier this year in Ghana's high court and the mine was handed over to a new operator. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Blue International's travails were not felt only by Ghanaian miners and the surrounding community. The British taxpayer's investment in the business now appeared to be under threat too. But it was blue-blooded lenders that suffered the more profound consequences. In 2021, at the start of its Ghanaian venture, Blue International had borrowed about $5m from Devonport Capital, a bespoke lender specialising in 'high-risk' jurisdictions, offering short-term loans at relatively high interest rates. Devonport, headquartered in Plymouth, was founded by Paul Bailey, a corporate lawyer who had carved out a niche advising investors in postwar Iraq. His partner was Thomas Kingston, who had also worked in Iraq conducting hostage negotiations for the UK Foreign Office in Baghdad, where he had witnessed first-hand the horrors of sectarian violence. In the UK, Kingston was better known for his marriage, in 2019, to Lady Gabriella Windsor, a second cousin of King Charles III. With this experienced and well-connected duo at the helm, Devonport thrived, recording pre-tax profit of £6m in 2023. But as Blue International's Ghanaian woes mounted, it began defaulting on the interest payments it owed to Devonport. Another of Devonport's important borrowers also defaulted at the same time, leaving the lender increasingly unable to repay its own creditors. Then, in February 2024, personal tragedy struck. Thomas Kingston died from a gunshot wound at his parents' home in the Cotswolds on 25 February. A coroner ruled that he had taken his own life. Torn apart by a combination of personal tragedy and the ongoing inability to recover its debts, Devonport fell into administration a year later. A report published in March by the administrator, RG Insolvency, lists creditors who had lent money to Devonport. Among them is Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand businessman and founder of Dubai-based investment company Legatum, which funds UK media channel GB News. Chandler declined to comment. Creditors also include HM Revenue and Customs, which is owed more than £788,000. RG Insolvency estimates that, of the £49m owed by Devonport, as little as £11.2m could be recovered. Much will depend on whether administrators can recoup about £13.5m owed by Blue International. Earlier this year, the team behind Blue International completed a $114.5m combination with a US 'blank cheque' investment firm called Perception Capital, and floating the combined entity on the US Nasdaq stock exchange under the Blue Gold name. What comes next is murky at best. Blue Gold's new website outlines ambitious plans to reopen the Bogoso-Prestea mine. But Ghana appears to be sticking by its decision to strip Blue of the lease. The dispute is now the subject of international arbitration, according to a stock market filing by Blue Gold, leaving the mine's future up in the air. In an annual report filed in the US, Blue Gold admits that the leases may never be returned, which would reduce the value of the company's assets from $368m to less than $45m. A section on the company website offers little further clarity, stating: 'Subject to resolving legal dispute with the government of Ghana, first gold pour is expected.' The Guardian approached the Foreign Office to ask if the UK government had intervened on Blue Gold's behalf with ministers in Accra. The department declined to comment. Dannatt and Triesman also declined to comment. Glen said he had not discussed the company's Ghanaian dispute with any UK government department, official or diplomat. On the ground in Ghana,local sources say little has changed, with operations still shut down under a new owner and mineworkers still left unpaid. The uncertainty means that, for everyone from local mineworkers to members of the British establishment, the dream of blue gold remains a mirage, tantalisingly out of reach. The Guardian approached Blue Gold for comment. The company referred the Guardian to its website and shareholder filings but did not address questions directly. Paul Bailey did not return requests for comment. RG Insolvency declined to comment.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Tory peer apologises for helping set up ministerial meeting for firm he advises
A Conservative peer has apologised for breaking the House of Lords rules by helping to secure a meeting with a minister for a Canadian company he advises. Ian Duncan, a deputy speaker of the Lords, was found to have breached the rules by providing a parliamentary service for Terrestrial Energy when he facilitated an introduction between its chief executive and a new energy minister. His conduct had been reported to the House of Lords standards commissioner following the Guardian's months-long investigation examining the commercial interests of peers. As a result of the Lords debate series, four other peers are being investigated to establish whether they breached the house's code of conduct. A fifth peer, Iain McNicol, a former general secretary of the Labour party, was required to apologise in May for breaking the rules by writing to the Treasury to promote a cryptocurrency firm that was paying him. In a report published on Friday, the standards commissioner ruled that Lord Duncan of Springbank had broken the rules which forbid peers from seeking to profit from their membership of the upper chamber. The former junior climate minister has been an adviser to Terrestrial Energy since 2020. When he first joined, he was given share options, which allow him to buy shares in the company at a preferential rate if they become profitable. The Guardian revealed that, in 2023, Duncan forwarded a letter to Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister at the time, from Simon Irish, the firm's chief executive who wanted a meeting with the minister at short notice. The peer signed off his email 'Lord D of S'. The chief executive of the company, which is developing a new type of nuclear reactor, secured the meeting with Bowie at which he lobbied for Terrestrial Energy to be given easier access to government funding. In his response to the watchdog, Duncan said Bowie was a 'friend of long standing' who had helped him get elected as a member of the European parliament in 2014 and had then worked in his Brussels office. Duncan argued: 'It was this personal relationship, and not my membership of the upper house, nor my government service, which led Mr Irish to ask whether there was a prospect (albeit limited) that a personal request might help land a meeting during his visit.' Margaret Obi, the Lords commissioner, decided that the rule prohibiting peers from providing 'parliamentary services in return for payment or other incentive or reward' was absolute. She added: 'It did not provide an exemption in cases where there was an existing personal relationship.' She ruled: 'Although Lord Duncan stated he was not paid specifically for facilitating this introduction, he received an allocation of share options as consideration for his work for Terrestrial Energy. 'I consider that this can reasonably be understood to have been an incentive or reward for the various tasks he undertook for the company.'
ITV News
2 days ago
- ITV News
Agreement on Hillsborough Law 'could come in weeks'
The topic was brought up in the House of Lords The Government is 'hopeful' it can come to an agreement on a Hillsborough Law with the families impacted by the disaster 'in the coming weeks and months', the House of Lords has heard. Speaking from the Government front bench, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede said talks 'have been going positively', as peers raised concerns the duty of candour element of the proposed law is being watered down. Labour peer Baroness Chakrabarti said the families of the 97 football fans who died following the 1989 incident feel 'less positive' about its discussions with the Government. The deadly crush occurred during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at the football ground in Sheffield. The proposed law would require public bodies to have a duty of candour, meaning they would need to co-operate with official inquiries and tell the truth in the aftermath of major disasters – or face criminal sanctions. A previous deadline set by Labour, that the Bill would be passed before the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in April, has been missed. The Government had said it needed more time to finalise the Bill. A draft Bill has been criticised by campaigners, including the Hillsborough Law Now group, for not containing pledges previously made – including the duty of candour. Lady Chakrabarti told the upper chamber on Thursday: 'I'm grateful to (the minister), as always, for repeating the Government's commitment to introduce Hillsborough Law, but I'm afraid that the families and their representatives feel a little less positive about the engagement they had so far. 'Some worry that they've been briefed against to the newspapers, and generally speaking, they worry about the dilution that … Lord Storey has warned against.' Lord Ponsonby said he was 'sorry to hear that', adding: 'I am aware of very recent interaction with the families in Liverpool, and what I understand is those talks have been going positively, and it is very much hoped that we able to reach some form of agreement in the coming weeks and months.' He had earlier said: 'Since March, we have listened to stakeholder feedback to ensure that we deliver the best Bill possible. 'This engagement has been constructive and progress has been made. Engagement is ongoing and will continue over the summer.' Liberal Democrat peer Lord Storey said: 'Would he give a clear commitment there will be no watering down of that duty of candour intent when the Bill is published?' Lord Ponsonby replied: 'The Prime Minister has made a personal commitment to the affected families to work with them constructively to come up with an appropriate law. 'Regarding the duty of candour, the Government is clear that what happened following the Hillsborough disaster must never happen again. 'Under the Hillsborough Law, public officials will be bound by duties of candour with criminal and professional consequences. 'We are committed to achieving a true cultural change. The Bill cannot change culture on its own, but it can and should act as a catalyst, and we remain committed to launching a programme to encourage cultural change alongside the Bill.'
