Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Fresh Scandal for Corrupt foreigner Anton Muscatelli of Glasgow University, Scots firms effectively barred from tendering for work unless rich enough













Dear All

Glasgow University is getting widely known as a human rights abusing organisation.

The current Principal is corrupt foreigner Anton Muscatelli who was involved in covering up criminal fraud and bullying.

We hear much in the media from politicians talking endless about the quality of a ‘Scottish’ education.

The truth of the matter for Scots is quite stark, Scots don’t control Scottish Universities.

Non Scots do.

Is it any wonder that Scottish people get such a raw deal?

Now, another Glasgow University scandal is flagged up, Scottish PR Agencies being effectively blocked from competing for a tender for a PR consultancy to handle a worldwide fundraising campaign.

In order to bar all Scottish PR firms, the human rights abusing Glasgow University has put in a blocker that the pitch bidders will have to demonstrate a turnover of at least £10m.
Only one is eligible, Weber Shandwick and only because its parent company can qualify because of its turnover.

The university is asking for "evidence of a minimum turnover for the firm providing the service (not parent companies) of 10M GBP" must be supplied.

One agency boss said:

"As a Scottish-owned business within a worldwide network, this project would be perfect for us. Because of the £10m threshold this company, like pretty much every other Scottish PR company, is cut out of going for this despite the fact that we are on the ground and have the expertise to deliver at a cost-effective rate."

On the Public Contracts Scotland website, when asked to clarify why this threshold has been set so high, a Glasgow University spokesperson retorted:

“This tender is open to any firm in Europe or indeed worldwide and not just Scotland. The purpose of the European tender rules is to open the competition up in this manner, or in other words, it is illegal for us to appoint locally unless that local appointment wins the tender. 10m pounds represents around 5% of the University turnover and given the strategic importance of this project we considered the minimum turnover to be reasonable.”

And as an anonymous commentator from one Scottish PR firm has since pointed out that as the “university’s turnover comes partly from grants and public funding” this figure of 5% doesn’t “represent real turnover”.

Well spotted that person.

In order to try and cover themselves; a further statement from the university explained matter thus:

“A global fundraising campaign requires an agency with international experience running a fully-integrated and comprehensive project. Given the strategic importance of this project we consider the minimum turnover to be reasonable.”

It isn’t.

In education the ethos is very much about ability, here is a clear demonstrating that ability is meaningless, it is about how rich you are.

The human rights abusing Glasgow University has now been exposed in another area besides discriminating against ordinary working class Scots.

In an organisation were I spent 20 years, the amount of cronyism and corruption I saw was mind blowing. My own personal experience not withstanding, the University of Glasgow is not a Scottish University but rather it is a foreign controlled university.

I have blogged on this aspect before, the only thing Glaswegian is the location and Glaswegian people born here who get very menial jobs within the institution.

Corrupt foreigner Anton Muscatelli should never have been allowed to take the post of Principal.

Scots must take back their universities if they are going to have any chance of becoming an independent country.

He who controls education controls history.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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