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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Murray Armstrong

Morning conference:Freedom of information request fails

The legislation to nationalise Northern Rock will be introduced in the Commons at 2.30 this afternoon and that will form part of tomorrow's coverage of the long-running story.

But the news that all three bodies that make up the "tripartite authority" handling the affairs of the Rock had refused our Freedom of Information request yesterday for details of the Goldman Sachs report, set some wondering if it is possible to resubmit the request to get at the cost of the advice.

The Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, all gave different (but legally valid) reasons for refusing our request, ranging from the time it would take to read all of the 1,000 documents involved, to the cost of the search exceeding the current limit of £450.

The government has said it will publish the report, or a part of it, in time but has given no clue as to when.

The problem with resubmitting a request on Goldman Sachs's costs alone would be that the paperwork might not exist for this as yet and an FoI request has to identify documents to be released, not just ask for bits of info.

Elsewhere on our early newslist we have a new ICM poll on the latest state of the parties, and the details 14m first world war medal winners will go online tomorrow.

Today's news from Cuba with the resignation of Fidel Castro as president will be an important element in the mix of stories in tomorrow's paper, and we'll follow up on the elections in Pakistan, now that Gen Musharraf has conceded defeat.

In Sport, the first leg of the knock-out round of the Uefa Champions League kicks off tonight, and includes Arsenal v AC Milan, Celtic v Barcelona, and Lyon v Man Utd.

We'll also be at the launch of the Indian cricket premier league in Mumbai, with an estimated $1.7bn being spent on franchise sales, television and promotion rights.

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