Lady Dame Pauline Neville Jones Fan Club at work : Pt 251

Tom Griffin at the Green Ribbon reminds us that according to Jane's Defence Weekly, a decision on the contract for Aegis to provide contract security services, worth a potential $475 million, is due by 10 April.

The CEO and founder of Aegis, Tim Spicer, was commanding officer of the Scots Guards in Belfast in 1992 when 2 his soldiers murdered 19-year-old Peter Mc Bride. McBrides mother has asked through the Pat Finucane Centre , who wrote (text PDF!)to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on Mrs McBride's behalf calling for Aegis to be excluded from any future contracts.

The FCO responded earlier this year after the Blessed Margaret had considered the case - they refused her request and wrote:

"Having given your correspondence very careful consideration, the FCO does not believe that the points that you have made on Mrs McBride’s behalf justify the FCO giving the assurances that she is seeking. Hence the FCO gives no guarantee that future expressions of interest in FCO contracts by Aegis will not result in their being invited to tender or indeed being awarded a contract. "

On Iraq and the company activities and reputation there ;

"The FCO accepts that Aegis’s conduct in Iraq, and the manner in which it has discharged its responsibilities to the DoD may be relevant to the FCO’s consideration of any tender submitted by Aegis for future contracts. However, the FCO does not consider that that conduct justifies Aegis’s being excluded from tendering, as Mrs McBride suggests".

Which is a polite way of telling her to fuck off and mind her own business

The Pat Finucane Centre are asking supporters in the US and around the world to lobby against the renewal of the Pentagon's contract with Aegis.


A prospect that pleased Mr Bruce Anderson in the Independent 18th December 2006. "Bold Tory thinking on the security of our nation"