Marketing Begins At Home

More important than MPs' expenses are their outside interests

We have heard lots of stuff about MPs' expenses, but much more interesting and much more important are their outside interests. Below is a list of what John Gummer lists as his outside interests. Without picking unduly on Mr Gummer, how will his vote be affected by legislation on financial services advisors?

When we do get to question future MPs for the next Parliament, the most important question is - who pays you and for what?

GUMMER

, Rt. Hon. John Selwyn (Suffolk Coastal)

1. Remunerated directorships

Chairman, Sancroft International Ltd.; consultants providing advice and monitoring in

corporate responsibility and environmental, social, ethical and planning issues.

Chairman, Veolia (formerly Vivendi UK); water companies.

Chairman (non-executive), Valpak Ltd.; not-for-profit organisation for compliance with

packaging waste directive.

Chairman of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers; a representative trade

organisation.

Sovereign Reversions Limited (non-executive); home reversions.

Catholic Herald (non-executive); newspaper.

Sistema-Hals (non-executive director, corporate governance); Moscow-based real estate

development, management and investment company.

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2. Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc.

Articles in: Catholic Herald, Country Life, Estates Gazette, Planning, Evening Standard. I

also chair conferences. The subjects in both cases are usually property, sustainable

development and religious issues. The commitments arise largely from my previous

profession of journalism and all payments go to Sancroft which provides research staff,

information services, and all other facilities. Currently Sancroft would expect about £100,000

in payments, in respect of which I would receive some £30,000 in fees and dividends.

5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK)

My wife and I received tickets for the Conservative Party’s ‘Black and White Party’ on 4

February 2009, paid for by Mr Christopher Moran, of London.

(Registered 20 March 2009)

8. Land and Property

A residential and commercial property in London, owned by family.

9. Registrable shareholdings

(a) Sancroft International Ltd.

Why British Airways will never be my favourite airline

To British Airways from a consistently disgruntled customer over many years.

1. Your customer service email responses do not have an email address you can reply to. If I took the time and trouble to write to you, I want to engage in a dialogue. I know it costs you money. But if you answered my questions right first time then we wouldn't need to go back and forth. Putting barriers in my way only makes me more upset. And more upset won't make me feel better about you.

2. You designed a new state of the art terminal at Heathrow where a significant proportion of the flights do not have a jetway attached. So now we have to go back to the 60s and ride around in airport buses. This not only adds to the journey and slows me down, but makes me feel even more like cattle than the rest of the journey. And lets not talk about security lines, check in hassles, baggage reclaim hassles, etc that are still going on every day. Oh, and you screwed up the public transit to all the terminals by the way in which the Heathrow Express/Connect services were designed. Instead of a nice circle between three terminals we now have an abortion of a changeover at T1,2,3. Great.

3. I feel like a third class citizen when I use free miles to travel, with worse seating allocations. Pay attention here - I used your service enough to get enough miles to travel somewhere. Apart from the fact it isn't free because I have to pay significant charges to USE the air miles, please pay attention to the fact that I should be your MOST favoured customer, not some piece of trash that fills up your empty seats.

4. In all the years I have flown you I have been upgraded once. Its not your policy to upgrade people unless it is for your operational convenience. Well guess what? I fly Star Alliance instead. They understand that upgrades are appreciated by their customers and rewarded with loyalty. I like being able to buy exit row seating for a small extra charge in economy. Made my flight to Australia last year much more comfortable.

5. Your cabin baggage space is a joke. Why do you want to have the smallest bins in the air? Expecially when they are using real estate that you cannot cram any more seats into? And why do you insist on putting stuff like oxygen and crew apparatus near the emergency exits when that is the space that is most needed by passengers for their stuff so as to keep the emergency exits clear?

About the only think I really like about BA is the website. Clean, easy to navigate, fast. Good online checkin.  Perhaps your web team should go sort out the baggage problem at T5? Redesign your customer services? Speed up your security checkin?