arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Interviw with George Monbiot :

What was your main aim in writing this book?

Many people have long suspected that the relationship between the Government and big business in Britain is too close for comfort, but no one has attempted systematically to show what's happening.

I wanted to write an accessible, story-led book, which anyone could read and understand, yet which also provided the information and analysis which for so long has been lacking. I think if I'd realised how big a task I'd set myself, I'd never have begun. It took three very gruelling years of investigation, with the help of three researchers. The story we've uncovered is, I think, truly shocking: we've managed to shine a light into corners of British life which have never been exposed before

How frightening a prospect is the corporate takeover of Britain?

I feel that corporate influence has become Britain's most pressing threat to democracy. I have shown how, time and again, the Government has made decisions which help big business, while damaging small and medium sized companies and compromising the quality of life of everyone in Britain, bar a few well-placed executives. Britain is coming, once again, to be run for the few, not the many.

How did you come across the stories featured in your book, for example the Skye Bridge mystery and the destruction of Southampton?

Partly through contacts with hundreds of campaigners and local people's groups around the country, partly through trawling the archives of scores of obscure journals and databases and Government departments. Whenever I started investigating one story, several more came to light. I soon got the impression that, with enough time and resources, you could uncover scandals of similar proportions in almost every town in Britain, most of which have never been investigated by anyone before. This book could have been one of twenty volumes.

What would you say is the most shocking thing you've uncovered while writing this book?

It's hard to say because there's so much, but perhaps it's the way in which control over the National Health Service, schools, prisons and much of our critical infrastructure is being handed to companies through the "Private Finance Initiative": a subtle form of privatisation whose main purpose is to provide new opportunities for big business. The result is that the provision of public services is being completely distorted, to meet the welfare of private companies, rather than the welfare of the public. Projects for renovating and improving hospitals, for example, are being abandoned because they are too cheap: corporations want much more expensive schemes, involving the closure of old hospitals and the rebuilding of a much smaller number of new ones, generally away from town centres, so that the old, town centre land becomes available for development. The NHS is being bled dry to support these lucrative but wholly unnecessary new projects, with the result that, however much money the Government pours into it, both bed numbers and staff numbers will continue to decline.

Have you discovered many conflicts of interest in the actions and roles of prominent public figures and members of government?

One chapter is called "The Fat Cats Directory". It takes the form of a table: Name of Fat Cat, Previous Gluttony, Subsequent Creamery. It shows how scores of business people have been given posts which clash head-on with their commercial interests. In many cases they have been asked to regulate their own industries, with predictably disastrous results. In other cases they have been asked to implement the very policies they have been campaigning against: as you can imagine, they haven't exactly been pursuing their new tasks with enthusiasm.

How concerned should we be in Britain about the genetic modification of food?

In Captive State I've shown, for example, how a British company helped to engineer the approval of new legislation, granting corporations rights over the blueprints of human life. I've shown how the British government raised by 200 times the permitted residues of a pesticide linked by some scientists to the rapid spread of a once-rare cancer, in order to allow a genetically modified crop to be introduced, then ensured that consumers had no means of knowing whether or not these residues were present in the food they bought. I document the extraordinary web of contacts linking biotechnology companies, government ministers and government agencies, and the misrepresentations and public relations strategies the government has deployed as a result. I think you'll agree, when you've read these chapters, that we ought to be pretty concerned.

Is Britain the only place where these things are happening?

I think the situation in Britain is worse than in most other developed countries, but corporate domination is clearly increasing all over the world. I've included a chapter on the corporate takeover of the planet, which exposes, among other things, the extraordinary influence of big business over the formation and expansion of the European Union, as well as the quiet, corporate-driven plan, already being implemented, to create a single market incorporating Europe and North America.

What do you think the repercussions of this publication will be?

Were there any honour left in public life, several key Government figures would have to resign. As there is precious little, I doubt this will happen, but it should certainly prove to be extremely embarrassing. I think it's likely to cause a stupendous fuss, and I don't suppose I'll be on the Prime Minister's Christmas card list for a while!

What action can individuals take to challenge the corporate takeover of Britain?

It's amazing how powerful we can be, once we have the information we need and decide to act on it. In the last chapter I suggest some of the ways in which the corporate takeover of Britain can be confronted. If we don't challenge it now, we may never have the chance again, for the new pattern of power is consolidating rapidly. But if we do, we can rescue the state from its captivity, and ensure that Britain comes to be governed not by money but by its people.