Thursday, July 12, 2007

The dirt on Super Casinos

One of the things that always had alarm bells ringing in my head about "Super Casinos" was who wanted them?

I have never spoken to a voter or indeed a gambler who has pressed me on this.

Where did the driving force come from?

Well Paul Mason's report on the issue shed more light in the issue, talking of his meetings with civil servants in the Department of Culture Media and Sport.

It seems they were very keen on the idea of super casino's and indeed some had even gone as far as preparing CV's outlining their skills and how they could help companies wishing to build these casinos.

On current government regulations civil people can both join the civil service from business and business from the civil service. Sounds sensible until to realise that the revolving doors create conflicts of interest especially in areas like this where a civil servant can draw up policy guidance and then nip out and ask for a large fee to advise on it.

Perhaps this is where the strange drive for Super casinos came from?

Regrettably Paul Mason's report is not online yet. Newsnights website is here.

2 comments:

James Higham said...

I agree - who needs them except those who stand to rake off the dosh?

Anonymous said...

It started off years ago,somebody decided it would help if Blackpool had big casinos ,and had plans to turn the mile into American casinos,it's been on our local North West news way before this lot got hold of it