Rebellion in Arlene McCarthy's constituency

Report from McCarthy's region: "Our current MEP, Arlene McCarthy, has annoyed so many small business people and creative folk with her pro-corporate attitude and proved so unresponsive to her constituents on other issues, that I think there's a real chance we can replace her with a true representative of the North West." Ms McCarthy last night hit back at the criticism. She said: "I am actually endorsed by the Merseyside Special Investment fund for my help with small businesses and have done a lot in Europe to help small and medium enterprises.|It was my report that secured the last Objective 1 funding for Liverpool and Merseyside so I do not know where this criticism has come from really."
Compare this to McCarthy's response to criticism in the case of the software patent directive. The pattern is the same: claiming that she brought in some helpful amendments, which in this case (see letter to the Guardian) did not exist.
Arlene McCarthy MEP and Software Patents: British Member of the European Parliament, Labor/PSE, appointed by the Europarl Committtee for Legal Affairs and Internal Market (JURI) in 2002/03 to report on the software patentability directive. In June 2002 Arlene McCarthy published a short report which aggressively promoted the agenda of the European Patent Office (EPO). The paper charged the patent critics of having provided only invalid arguments, but failed to quote or refute any of these arguments. Meanwhile various people from the EPO and patent lobby were in contact with McCarthy and boasted that their viewpoint would prevail and the discussion would soon be over. A hearing arranged by McCarthy and the europarl webspace dedicated to the hearing both offered minimal room for critical views. Arlene McCarthy's draft report of 2003/02/19, her explanatory note of 2003/05/03 and her refusal to accept any amendments which limit patentability or patent enforcability in any way show complete dedication to the interests of patent owners. While staying away from all informed discussions and conferences on software patent questions, McCarthy has actively reaching out to the media in order to present herself as a victim of a "dishonest and destructive misinformation campaign" who is sincerely trying to limit patentability. McCarthy has been serving the recording industry and various projects of the Commission's Directorate for the Internal Market (Bolkestein) with equal fervor. McCarthy's political business model appears to consist in (1) aggressively and unconditionally serving of the Commission and big business (2) obtaining favorabl treatment by Commission and Big Business for her electoral region / constituency.


Software Patents > Journal > History 04/08/24 > News of 2004 > Kober 04/01/14 > McCarthy 04/01/13
Kober 04/01/14	Bolkestein 04/01/19	McCarthy 04/01/13