The Labour Party has been receiving donations from a wealthy businessman. Only he didn’t wish to donate in his own name, so he made the donations in the names of two of his employees.
This illegal practice has now been brought to light, and the General Secretary of the Labour Party has resigned.
According to him, although he knew of the arrangement, he wasn’t aware that it was illegal.
Really?
Not saying he isn’t telling the truth, but I find it hard to believe that he didn’t even take the precaution of checking first. That would have been the prudent thing to do. Following on from the whole ‘cash for honours’ allegations, where gifts to political parties were disguised as loans in order to circumvent the disclosure rules, one would have expected a diligent General Secretary to be on his toes, so as to avoid any further trouble of that kind.
The issue in this case is the same as that in the case of the disguised loans: people taking steps to disguise the fact that they have made donations to a political party. Surely the General Secretary should have seen that, recognised the similarity, and heeded the warning signals.
If he is telling the truth, and he didn’t know that this was illegal, how utterly, utterly inept of him. I suppose that’s the best that could be said of the matter.
UPDATE. Denis MacShane on Sky News trying to use these events to make the case for state funding. These politicians are shameless.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Bel: This whole affair stinks to high heaven. I do not accept the pathetic excuses because of the legal maxim “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. For a person who sought his privacy to sit in the front row of Tony Blair’s resignation beggars belief. My understanding of a donation is that it is a gift. In this case, it has to be said that following David Abrahams’s £160,000 bribe to the Labour Party he was granted a £60 million business park planning application which had been refused prior to the payment.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
JHL is right Bel. You’re being too kind.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Grubby, grubby people.
December 25th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
It is essential to get New Labour out of Downing Street. They are the most corrupt, incompetent, shocking government I have ever seen at the helm of my country.
Under this awful government, so-called asylum seekers and other foreigners are flocking to Britain. They don’t claim asylum in other European countries because they all want to come to soft touch Britain where they will get put to the front of the queue before British people for housing, people who have paid into the system for years! In addition, they walk all over us: mosques are springing up like never before and Muslims suicide bomb us and call us evil - but they’re only too happy to claim the full range of benefits available! I’m sick of the loathsome lefties eroding our culture and way of life and will definitely be voting for the BNP at the next election as I see them as the only hope for claiming our country back. Currently, white British people are made to feel like second-class citizens in their own country. There’s no freedom of speech either unless it’s for the foreigner.
Next, there are services which are in chaos. Water shortages in summer are becoming far more common and migrants breeding like rabbits will double our population reportedly by 2080. We have hosepipe bans in the summer - people are going to die because of all the extra people! What about the rising burden on the NHS? How about the fact fifty different languages will be spoken in schools and the impact on communication and education? There’s also going to be far more houses needed. Think of all those extra houses having to be built on floodplains - because of demand by foreigners. For Goodness’ sake, we’re heading for Muslim Sharia law in this country.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:48 am
The General Secretary of the Solidarity Union is calling for Trade Union political funds to be ‘opt-in’ rather than ‘opt-out’. Many people are donating to Labour without even realising it. Hopefully this will be promoted by Conservatives and others. If you wish to opt-out of your political fund in the meantime email solidaritygb@aol.com and they will tell you how.