Have a good Wednesday Mr. Brown
November 28th, 2007
What is it about Labour’s friends in the North?
Even when things are going well for a Prime Minister a Wednesday morning is probably not the best of times to be around Number 10. Over-shadowing everything when parliament is in session is Prime Minister’s Questions - the weekly ritual that has to be surmounted and where the post-holder can only guess at what he is likely to be asked.
Gordon’s usual day, we are told, starts very early with a look at the papers and these will not bring much comfort. The donations scandal involving Mr. Abrahams or Mr. Martin, whatever he likes to be called, has exploded as more names are revealed of people who have acted as proxies for him.
Also interesting are the revelations about the selective nature of his support.
Thankfully for Gordon his leadership campaign refused money from this source although at least one of the campaigns of those running for deputy were beneficiaries.
To get a sense of what Abrahams is like there is an an excellent piece by Stephen Pollard on his Spectator blog which was referred to on the thread yesterday and which is well worth reading.
Pollard recalls meetings the Fabian Society, where he worked, from 1992-1995. “One of the regular - indeed, one of the most assiduous - attendees at those meetings was David Abrahams. He would mix, as would everyone in that milieu, with backbenchers, front benchers, NEC members and Shadow Cabinet members..Many of those people are now ministers. Others are Cabinet members, some very senior. It is possible - just - that when they say they have no idea who David Abrahams is, or cannot recall ever meeting him, they are telling the truth. It is, after all, possible that there are people in the country who have never heard of, say, Gordon Brown. Possible, yes; but very, very unlikely..Indeed, far from keeping himself to himself, as is being written, Abrahams was about the pushiest person I ever came across in my time at the Fabians - and in politics, that is saying something.
Abrahams’ explanation of his behaviour makes little sense. Can he really have gone from being one of the pushiest and most self-aggrandising people I came across to being so afraid of publicity that he channelled donations through other people? I don’t think we have got remotely to the bottom of the Abrahams side of this story.”
Meanwhile on the next general election spread betting markets the buy price for Tory seats is now above 300.
Mike Smithson
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The Indy’s juxtaposition of that headline with that pic is a bit mischievous, isn’t it?
Just finished reading yesterday nights thread. Compulsive reading! Thank goodness those adolescent Tories from earlier had disappeared off to Guido’s fiction factory and elsewhere.
It’s odd that someone (Abrahams) who claims he wants to avoid publicity should have appeared on Newsnight. It looks like we’re dealing with a real Walter Mitty character which is always dangerous.
This look bleak for Labour which is a shame because of all their recent difficulties this just a silly oversight. I have no question marks whatever over Brown’s probity.
It’ll blow over in a few weeks and the damage can be assessed. They’re lucky that they’re facing a smarmy Tory Party who 60% will never vote for but unlucky to have a sparkling new Lib Dem leader who could be quite a threat.
Mischievous editing? Newspapers? Shurely not!
Roger, it may “blow over”, as you would put it; however I presume you are not being so brave as to suggest that it will not leave a serious legacy over the issue of trust and corruption. Admittedly by itself it means little, but as part of a steady drip of headlines starting with the Blair cash-for-honours episode, I don’t think the press will let the people have any impression of this aged government other than that of being a bit dodgy. This will in turn affect the polls.
1. rullko, it took me about a minute to realize it wasn’t pointing at Blair!
2. your right on your second point, the obvious lies being told about Abrahams personality are only going to cause more problems for Labour, i would expect damage control, instead, their fueling the flames with easily unraveled lies. What a mess.
The Tories are lucky that they’re facing a flashy Labour Party who 61% will never vote for but unlucky to have a sparkling new Lib Dem leader who could be quite a threat.
I missed the end of Newsnight.
Got to love the PBer who posted that “thick of it” phone call
Will watch again at work when time permits
The burning question here is do we have a snappy -gate name for this latest fiasco? I like Geordiegate or perhaps Gallowgategate.
I have been looking at the post of the Labour Creatures like Roger and the daywalker Micheal White.
They know that their party has been caught in the till. They know they have perverted democracy - and as such, have no right to occupy number 10.
But for the Labour Creatures, it was nevr about democracy. It was and is, always about power. Politics to them is war. Democracy is irrelevent.
They consider the corruption scandle as nothing more than a direct hit. They feel they must regroup and attack.
They need to realise it is democracy - not war. Else, the people with exclude them from democracy - just as they did with Moseley’s BUF, the NF and the Communist Party.
BLOODY STUPID SLOW POSTING!!
Sorry all.
Mike. Please delete spare posts.
7. You can’t do better than the Daily Mash’s “Whatabunchoflyingbastards-gate” (h/t Coldstone)
From your Africa correspondent: I am a Briton living in Kenya, a country celebrated for its wildlife, beaches, and governmental corruption.
Over the last day I have had several gleeful phone calls from my Kenyan friends: “maybe you guys can teach us a thing or two about corruption”, or “why don’t you send that Brown fellow to be our president, he would fit in perfectly” etc etc. All jokes of course, but they still make me cringe.
As I lifelong Conservative I suppose I should be rejoicing at this latest train-smash, but frankly I just find it deeply embarrasing, and troubling. I am sure that the Rogers on this board will berate me for comparing British and African politics, but the point is that this does not make Britain look good. The FCO, through its High Commissioners, has made great efforts in the past to “help” African governments clean up their act. With limited success, I should add, but at least they try. Episodes like this do not exactly help the case.
O/T - For US Election Watchers…
Huckabee gets a very good poll in Florida.
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/11/new_ia_gop_poll_for_florida.html
You can get 20/1 with VC at the moment, though only for £12. Still worth taking though.
From the way in which Abrahams published the contents of the letter from Labour’s chief fundraiser, one gets the impression that he’s not taking all this very happily - and understandably so. Clearly, that means that there’ll be another senior figure resigning their post from the Labour ‘professional’ hierachy (what with Lord Levy’s involvement in the earlier police enquiry, this is becoming something of a trend with Labour fundraisers). The question is how much further the contamination will spread?
Harman’s position must be touch and go. It will be particularly difficult to explain why she accepted money from him after the election finished when others (including her new leader) had turned him down. Was there no communication either between the various campaign teams or between Labour centrally and the campaign teams as to who not to take money from? Presumably not, although that would imply a remarkable degree of risk-running.
Her position is further undermined by being Chair of the Labour Party. If there is to be an enquiry into how Leadership and Deputy Leadership candidates were open to breaches of the legislation without adequate vetting procedures for donations being in place (surely essential?), would not the Labour Chair be expected to have some role in that - even to conduct in in person? The conflicts of interest are obvious.
The bigger problem, as Ed B and Noodle infer in their own ways, seems to be a remarkably cavalier regard to the law from those at the top of Labour when getting a few quid for their party is a possibility. Criminal proceedings will not look good and could follow (which I’m guessing those at the Met won’t be keen to get involved in, for various reasons). Those are ludicrously high stakes for a governing party to play with for just about any reason, but especially for something like this. I wonder whether they actually accepted that those were in fact the potential risks or whether there was more of an attitude that said “it will never happen to us; we are the masters and can do what we like”.
We should hear a bit less about totally legal Lord Ashcroft, eh?
Abrahams on Newsnight was dynamite. Who says Aaron Mendelsohn will take the fall for Gordon Brown and pretend GB didn’t know?
Also why the hell should a Tory be forced to donate money to the Labour party? That’s identity theft and somebody should go to jail.
2 - Roger, I know it isn’t entirely clear what we should make of Mr Abrahams, but on Newsnight he made it sound far from a “silly mistake”. He made it sound very much like he had been advised to give money in this way, ans was sounding very bitter about the way the “fiasco” had turned out. He also seemed determined to draw as many people into the conspiracy as possible.
Frankly I’m absolutely astonished that there are still people who think that Harman’s $10000 is the story!
Quite amusing that the Bbc website doesn’t seem to think the thing is worthy of their front page though
I just can’t help but think back to the collapse of John Major’s government and recall that no matter how hard they tried, they were no longer capable of shaking off bad news (something which Tony Blair became a past master at).
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
In fact, is it just me, or do the BBC seem to have chosen today of all days to abolish their politics page?
After vehemently denying any involvement, the Dunns have suddenly “remembered” that they signed a “blank cheque” for Abrahams….
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2218270,00.html
18 - Odd. It’s their top story (at least on the one beamed to my little laptop!).
But you are spot on about the Mendelsohn-Abrahams connection being the real story, not the Harman diversion, though if her campaign team did actively solicit his financial backing, then it becomes rather more germane.
bbc “we’ll be hearing from John Mendelsohn very shortly”
2/15. Roger’s comment “It’s odd that someone (Abrahams) who claims he wants to avoid publicity should have appeared on Newsnight” perhaps misses the point. The impression I get is not that Abrahams wants to avoid publicity but that he wanted to avoid publicly donating to Labour / leadership candidates. He was quite happy for those who he needed to know, to know - as evidenced by the ‘Newsnight’ letter. For someone who is characterised as he is in Mike’s quote from the Spectator blog in the intro, the question we might legitimately ask is why he was so keen to preserve his anonymity. The innocent explanation would be that he wished to avoid the impression - however false it might be - of any linkage between his donations and his business interests. We might also ask why Labour was so willing to connive in the plan.
Why no mention of Hilary Benns part in this(a model of probity?) Surely his first reaction should have been,when told about Abrahams games, “This man is dangerous- the Labour party must be warned”. What does he do? “Tell Abrahams if he sends me the money in his own name take it then forget it” (a model of prbity?)
Abrahams was use to going to party conferences and was in TB’s going ceremony. He’s a major donor.
Suddenly GB denies he knows him.
Jack Straw ditto,
Abrahams has given all this money and now Labour disown him.
I reckon he’s pissed off with them hence the phone call.. to establish his worth to Labour
19 - That actually makes it worse because it could be construed as money laundering.
After scooping up the Parliamentarian of the Year in the annual Spectactor awards, and the Scottish Politician of the Year award at the annual Herald awards (ahead of one G Brown, who only managed to grasp the subsidiary “Best Scot at Westminster” gong), now Alex Salmond is named today as Politician of the Year in the annual Political Studies Awards, based on nominations received from 1700 politics professors, lecturers and researchers.
Other than “Best Scot at Westminster”, which other awards do pb.ers think that we ought to award Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Des Browne and Douglas Alexander? I would like to nominate Wendy Alexander (Douglas’s sibling in the British Labour Party’s Scotchland Branch) as “Invisible Woman of the Year”.
Nick Robinson getting his Janets mixed up on Radio 4.
What should Dave do at PMQs? I think he should concentrate on judges data and security errors. And also NR. Do not let the governance failures be overshadowed by the political greed.
‘The Harman diversion’ for those of us once of a Labour disposition squares the circle rather nicely. For it was her husband that got Labour into all it’s difficulties with ‘cash for questions’ in the first place.
I think most people found his holier than thou posturing rather sick making at the time and if his wife gets the sack it might show him that sometimes through no ones malice ’shit happens’.
One thing is for certain; if this had really been corrupt behaviour by any important player then they wouldn’t have handled it so ineptly. So it wasn’t. It was an old fashioned co.k up!
29 - Labour have been taking cash for questions as well? Can it get any worse?
11 O/T Why is it that so many of our expats are Tories? I am sure someone a lot cleverer than me will answer that one. For myself, as an ex-expat, I (in Ed B’s words) find that “deeply embarrassing”.
26: I’ll make a joint nomination of Salmond/Sweeney for the all time record number of broken election promises. Its all downhill from here Stuart. All that cash from our friends in the south and they still can’t find any more policemen!
I don’t know why the Tories go on about sleaze in this context. It just makes the electorate remember the Major government and incites the response: you’re both as bad as each other. A far better theme is incompetence, which fits into a pattern of ‘cock ups’ under Nulabour, which seem to be getting worse. I’m still stunned by the idea of a compliance officer who does not make sure he knows the rules of compliance.
Roger raises a good point of whether this dislike of Nulabour can be converted into Tory support. Blair did succeed in creating the impression that his Labour Party was new and pristine. I don’t think Cameron has done this. He does run the risk of anti-Brown votes going to the BNP, the Libdems, the Green and UKIP. Perhaps it does not matter and Tories can win with 40% of the vote. But it is another factor to weigh in the balance when betting on the result.
What about Lord Levy, Tony Blair?
Anyone had ConservativeHomes monthly questionnaire. Loved the question:
“An open question: How should Conservatives tackle the Liberal Democrats?”
33 the word SLEAZE fits nicely into a newspaper headline.
This story gets more delicious by the hour. It’s dynamite.
Half the fun is guessing what’s going to come out of the woodwork next…
31. Tim. Because they’re old fashioned colonialists?
37 - Indeed. The BBC roughed up Geoff Hoon asking him on Breakfast if the enquiry should be conducted by the police. News 24 having fun regularly replaying the Abrahams interview in full.
Mendelson also knew of the subterfuge:- SKY
33 Fernando. “I don’t know why the Tories go on about sleaze in this context.”
Maybe because Labour promised to be whiter-than-white when elected in 1997, and this just shows them up to be hypocrits.
cont…there is one crazy who posts on here called Tapestry who berates the government for allowing immigrants into the UK while he himself lives in Thailand.
38 Roger Could also be Loadsamoney!
Hi Roger - I thought Tapestry was in Shropshire? Perhaps he has 2 (or more) homes??
I would like to tally up those Labour figures whome we KNOW have lied i the ;last 2 days about this:
Jack Starw? Definitely
Watts? Definitely
Gordon I did not know anything Brown?
#39 Hoon’s blink rate was something to behold, almost on a par with HH yesterday.
” Daddy….where were you on the day that marked the end of the corrupt Government of Great Britain ?”
” I remember it well Son. It was the day I was walking near to Downing Street and was knocked over by a crowd of men and women in suits impersonating rats deserting a sinking ship.”
Well, it seems the more times the voters re-elect a government, the sleazier it gets. It took the Tories six years (remember Westland, anyone?), NuLab were into dodgy deals a lot sooner than that (cigarette advertising). But this apparent buying of planning permissions really is about as low as it’s possible to get.
Of course there’s no way back from this mess, and I stand by my prediction that at the next election the numbers of Tory and Labour MPs will swap over, while the LibDems tread water.
Indeed, all that Cameron has to do is to bring in a bill prohibiting public sector unions from political campaigning (it needs to be a manifesto commitment) and he will have prevented any party other than his own from being able to raise enough “clean” funds to campaign effectively.
Gordon Brown is a work obsessive and a control freak. Is it really feasible that he dodn’t know a guy who was regualrly at Labour events and donated hundreds of Thousands of Pounds. Next thing you know, he’ll be telling us he doesn’t look at opinion polls!!
So it was an “open secret”, but HH and GB didn’t know…
Sky: Watts told Mendelson all about it….
Guido wants to be the sleaze-buster
http://www.order-order.com/2007/11/pretty-vacant.html
So who’s going to resign today then? What other nuggets is Mr Abrahams/Martin going to deliver to an expectant media?
I can’t see how this Mendelson chap can survive. That WOULD be a massive blow to Brown, his own appointee turfed out within 5 months. I think Harman’s safe, the media have turned their focus on Abrahams and Mendelson. And Brown…
#50 BBC saying the same Watts told Mendleson last month.
Tim13 @ 31 “O/T Why is it that so many of our expats are Tories?”.
I can only speak for myself but for me the attraction of living abroad is to do with the absence of an entitlement culture, plus the desire not to feel like a tiny cog in a vast machine. I suppose these are Tory tendencies, and there is no shame in that.
Roger and Tim13. Give some thought to the fact that many ex-pats simply can’t afford to live in the UK.
The mistake Gordon made was not inviting more Digby Joneses, and Admiral Wests into his government - Its all those Labour Party ones that are the problem.
Don’t forget that Abrahams seems to have known other well known donors/fundraisers such as Sternberg.
http://www.order-order.com/2007/11/two-gordon-fundraisers-linked-to.html
56 - “A Government of all the talents” - LOL!
I’d forgotten about that one. They haven’t even got a talent for telling convincing porkies any more.
(Will I attract Roger’s opprobrium for my adolescent “LOL” use there?)
Events dear boy events….
54 In Kenya, Ed B?
You sure it’s not to do with living the life of Reilly on sfa?
It is William Blake’s birthday today.
I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
58 - Well in biblical times a talent was a unit of currency so perhaps they were not so far off!
Gordon Clown……Saviour of the Nation!
I would like to thank the Prime Minister for deciding not to call an Election. In doing so he has saved the Nation from an extra 3 years of him in Office.
I believe he should be the first recipient of the,
“David Abrahams/David Martin Award for Selective Memory.”
I’m still mainly concerned by the narrative: the media have decided for now that the Government is accident-prone, and everything that comes up is fed into that. The Tories are exploiting that to a ludicrous degree to distract from their own embarrassments - e.g. Marcus here accused me of (IIRC) ‘barefaced effrontery’ because I was raising the Ashcroft issue at a time when Labour was taking money from Abrahams.
Well, let’s analyse that. I’m critical of the Conservativ Party for giving the key role in their financing of marginal seats to someone whose tax residence is unclear and who has no reason to decide the fate of Tory candidates except that he happens to be rich. I’m also critical, and consider it an abuse of democracy, that any party should be able to spend *unlimited* sums promoting itself between elections, and I look forward to supporting legislation to prevent this abuse by any party. Anyone here is entitled to disagree - it’s a matter of opinion.
However, Marcus says that because a bloke I’ve never heard of persuades a woman I’ve never heard of to give him a blank cheque to donate money in her name for reasons that we don’t know about, it was barefaced effrontery on my part to discuss Lord A. Why?
Moreover, I know about it now, and continue to believe that allowing unlimited spending is an abuse of democracy.
The Problem for Labour it seems to me, has been caused directly by the obsession with Spin since the 90s. The problem with spin, as practiced so ruthlessly, (of course spin on a lesser scale is always part of politics, always will be) is that is has at its fundamental heart the idea that no situation is too dire if it can be presented in a favourable light in the press. The corollary is that there isn’t anything that can’t be done in furthering the Labour Party’s cause, as long as it can be kept secret or otherwise “spun away”.
The first jolt to this fundamental philosophy came with the death of David Kelly, the second with Cash for Honours, and this could be the final nail in the coffin. Because Labour are now discovering that you can’t undo what has been done in the past, and it is no longer possible to spin the past away.
Those at the top of the party have been unable to distinguish between activities which might play badly politically (for example Ashcroft) with activities that are Illegal. The fact that they continue to equate the two and try to play one off against the other demonstrates this fundamental misunderstanding.
Ashcroft may play badly politically, but the Conservatives are able to calculate that the benefits to them (money and organisation) outweigh any political hit they might take.
Breaking the law is a different matter completely, and there is no political trade-off that can be made in this respect.
64 - No more perfect example and right on cue.
“I can only speak for myself but for me the attraction of living abroad is to do with the absence of an entitlement culture, plus the desire not to feel like a tiny cog in a vast machine. I suppose these are Tory tendencies, and there is no shame in that”
As long as-unlike previous colonialists-you don’t have lots of Kenian cogs as part of your machine……..
42 cont. There is a crazy who posts here with four homes, two of which are in France.
PeterThePunter @ 60. I wish… the standard of living is OK here if you have the money, but on the other hand I have to spend more time worrying about paying for medical care, school fees, security and so on. I spent a year back in England in 1999, and hated every minute of it. Nothing to do with the weather or the tiny houses, everything to do with cultural claustrophobia.
64. Is it fair Nick, that Labour MP’s can post red leaflets and yellow writing funded by the taxpayer. Trying to restrict democratic free speech in a short term plan to try and save marginal seats will backfire enormously. £50k union spending cap methinks.
25 It is only money laundering if the money is of criminal origin. As long as the money was obtained legitimately, there is nothing wrong with person A giving person B a cheque for x amount of money in return for a blank cheque for the same amount of money. It is akin to the way some rich people route charitable donations through solicitors in order to remain anonymous.
Of course, a solicitor wouldn’t have got involved in this one as they would have been aware of the legalities. However, if Mr Abrahams had given money to, say, Oxfam this way, no crime would have been committed and no tax liability would have been created.
64. The media don’t think he’s accident prone - they think he’s an incompetent micro manager with personality defects - as do more and more of the country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/11/28/do2802.xml
67. Roger is Dave Spart and I claim my 5 pounds.
PtP: I’ve been on retreat for the last few days and this is my first opportunity to thank you for the Australian election tips. Any idea when the Bennelong result is expected?
Nick,
How can you claim any equivalance between breaking the law, which the labour party has been engaged in with respect to these donations and Lord Ashcroft, who gives money, under his own name and legally to the Tories? Thats a very weak position.
You wonder why people think politicians are out of touch, your post above is a classic example of why
71 - lol. One of the “agents” was a solicitor!
64 NickP “Moreover, I know about it now, and continue to believe that allowing unlimited spending is an abuse of democracy.”
Yes it is, and once they get into government all parties use the full resources of the state to further their own propaganda.
However, having said that all parties are guilty, Labour have taken this advantage to new heights, with their allowances to sitting MPs (the majority of whom are their own supporters, of course), paying political advisors out of the public purse, and official government ‘information’ programs that go beyond merely informing and into propaganda.
Government of all the talents - 25K of them will do nicely.
Identity theft is something which we have been warned about for a little while, likewise money laundering, and Nigerian bank account scams.
It is rather odd that Harman’s husband hasn’t had much to say on these donations. If the money is being returned to Abrahams, does this mean that the planning permission at Durham Green is to be revoked?
Any news on the missing HMRC disks today?
Tapestry told me, he’d gone to live abroad for his health.
When troubles come, they do not come singly or in pairs, but in bloody great battalions.
Brown should now announce that he is to call in an independent body, to take over all Labour Party accounts. That Labour Party people will no longer be involved in administering the financial side of the party.
Donations will be scrutinised by this body and will not be accepted unless they are totally kosher.
There must be no link between serving politicians and donations.
If someone offers a donation, they must be directed, to that body and must not be accepted by any Labour Party member.
“Donations will be scrutinised by this body and will not be accepted unless they are totally kosher.”
Unfortunate phraseology, methinks…
Well, Ed, I’ll go with “cultural claustrophobia” as a good reason for living abroad. I have found it very stimulating, and gives you all sorts of angles you don’t see in UK. however, away from the entitlement culture sounds like a Tory invention! If you didn’t have a decent living you wouldn’t be able to make those comments. And as for mirthios’s “can’t afford to live in UK”! yes that does cause me mirth!!
64 Nick P conveniently overlooks Brown’s donor Ronnie Cohen who refuses to clarify his own tax status. Nick P’s attempt to divert attention in this way will not wash. Your party has lost the trust of too many media people.
The real narrative here is that Labour people have become so used to power that their arrogance has led them into many poor decisions and very lax affairs. They were also desperate for cash. Watts preferred to risk losing office than turning down these donations. He reasoned that because others had done this in the past, then he could continue it.
Why did Blair pick two men barely in their 30s to be General Secretary? The job required people with far more experience than they had. They both ended up making terrible decisions over donors and presided over massive declines in memberships.
Brown has repeated this mistake with most of his choice in Ministers.
Overall, a jail term would clean up the party funding faster than any other action.
12. Thanks PtP, I’ve topped up on Huckabee again. He’s now close to evens for Iowa on intrade!
As a reminder, this was the original Frank Luntz story that got me backing him.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0807/5257.html
I don’t like conspiracy theories, but I’ve read that both Luntz and Fox are big Rudy supporters, and for them to push Huckabee in Iowa might have looked like a good way to undermine Romney’s challenge to Rudy. If so, those latest figures showing Huckabee now surging in Florida as well, which is supposed to be Rudy’s key state show it might have blown up in their face.
80
Not intentional!!
On Ashcroft, yes they may be legal, but he is of course ‘Lord’ Ashcroft because he promised to return and live in this country if he was granted a peerage, will he be giving it up now?
Weren’t the CIA a little concerned about some of his business activities in Belize a few years ago?
[64] Nick Palmer wrote of his distaste for someone… who has no reason to decide the fate of Tory candidates except that he happens to be rich - well, I don’t think Mr Ashcroft is deciding the fate of anyone, trying to influence it yes, and so is everyone else who gives money to a political party. And yes, the rich do have a lot more influence than anyone else, and if they have at least as much influence as they did ten years ago, who’s been in charge during those years?
Yes, it is possible to get rich in a squeaky-clean fashion, as J.K. Rowling and the late lamented Anita Roddick did, but they are exceptions. If you want to be rich, it helps to be nasty. As Tony Blair fully understands.
Nick P - I like you, most people on here do. It’s good that you’re around and we like hearing from you. But if you keep on harping on about Ashcroft’s money and how it’s going to cost you your seat, I think the goodwill that exists may get used up. You hardly come to this with clean hands given the vast amounts of public money you and every other incumbent MP gets to bombard your constituents with between elections, plus the union money that floods into your constituency and others. What’s wrong with a level playing field - are you that scared of being judged on your record?
This hypocritical double-standard leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, frankly.
That you - and others in the Govt - are trying to deflect attention away from their own self-inflicted crises by harping on about this “injustice” just adds to that sour taste.
our “save bedford hospital” party has turned down severl large potential donations, from genuine and bone fide donors, simply because we do not feel the need for large sums of money to achieve effective campaigning.
We have accepted people’s time, generously given; that is called participative democracy.
I ask again, why do political parties need all these expensive “wonks” and gurus; politics should not be about money, it should be about simple ideas simply explained
84. Slurs like that will get you in the libel courts.
64. Nick, the abuse of democracy is your communications allowance.
I confess I get very tired of your attacking unlimited spending in between cycles, because you propose to steal the election. You propose to block your opponents from spending money to reach the electorate, whilst you vote yourself eleven thousand of taxpayers money to give yourself taxpayer funded exclusive access to votes.
How can you come on Political Betting and defend your plans to literally steal an election in this way?
A direct question Nick. Have you ever used taxpayer funds to put out a leaflet praising your own work which was done in the red and yellow of the Labour party, and used the exact typeface and design of a Labour leaflet?
Multiple Labour MPs in marginals have.
Seriously, how do you dare advocate making sure incumbent MPs are the only ones who can put out literature between electoral cycles?
Your party is quite frankly corrupt. Using a Tory to give 25,000 pounds to Labour without her knowledge is corrupt. Doing so after cash for honours and apparent reform is corrupt. And now you are losing you want to gerrymander the election.
The proposal to stop spending between cycles but KEEP the propaganda allowance is disgusting gerrymandering and as a Tory in a marginal it makes me furious. Lord Ashcroft’s donations are utterly legal. You can’t raise money legitimately so you are simply going to move the goalposts.
Just received this e-mail - perhaps he would be a suitable candidate for fund raiser or Gen. Secx of the Labour party.
“Let me start by introducing myself.I am Mr. Ming Yang, Director of Operations of the Hang Seng Bank Ltd, Sai Wan Ho Branch, Hong Kong. I have an obscured business suggestion for you.I am here-by seeking your service in giving a clear research and feasibility studies on areas I could invest on. Your services will be paid for, and you will be a partner, if your recommendation is accepted.
As a bank employee, I cannot operate any personal investment till I am retired and with the Anti-corruption Bill passed in Hong Kong; it is risky for a fixed income earner to own any huge amount of money in Hong Kong or any foreign country. It is then advisable to invest in any foreign land secretly and patiently waits for retirement.
You are to handle everything personally and with utmost confidentiality, if my proposal is acceptable as I may not be able to travel down, since I must obtain an official clearance before leaving this territory.Note importantly that, this is a confidential proposal and must be treated as such because the banking sector has commenced probing of all senior banking officials that have served in the past and presently in service”
Should have read: “bombard your constituents with propaganda between elections”
84
I said weren’t they a little concerned, I didn’t say there was anything in it, I’m sure there wasn’t Lord Ashcroft is as pure as the driven snow.
And PS the target seats fund which comes from general donors and not one man comes with no strings attached other than good disciplined campaign mechanics, no political leanings or influence are involved.
64. Good post Nick P. Sometimes the hypocricy on here is so breathtaking it just makes you smile. Some guy who is camera shy gives a few quid to some friends to give to his favourite charity the Labour Party V a multi squillionaire who buys the Tory Party lock stock and barrel with money earned in a tax haven. I’m sure he’d go down well in Kenya.
Simon Jenkins was great on the Today Program
“If you send for a lawyer and a priest it suggests you are on your death bed”
94. And coincidentally gets a planning objection removed?
And one of his “friends” is a Tory voter and knew nothing about it?
95 LOL
If this had not all come out might it not have been Lord Abrahams soon?
64. Its all very well to talk about the Conservatives and Ashroft but what really annoys me is the way Ken Livingston and his use of taxpayer’s money to publish his own pet newpaper ‘the Londoner’ to enable him to spread positive propaganda about himself across London. Hell even Hitler and Stalin’s pet papers, Pravda and Die Sturmer, charged people to buy the newspaper, where as Ken uses tax payers money to have it delivered to every property in the capital.
94. Only in the world of the gauche caviar is 660,000 pounds ‘a few quid’.
96
“Some guy who is camera shy gives a few quid to some friends”
That’s a nice description for a criminal offence.
94 - Roger how much money do you think that Lord Ashcroft has given to the Conservative Party?
How much do you think this “camera shy guy giving a few quid” has given to the Labour Party?
96 - I think you’re behind the curve on the Janet Dunn story, test.
98. Nah, more like Lord PObox7541
103 No am not. She provided a blank cheque but had no idea it was to be used to donate to Labour and said she was “very upset” about it, direct quote. It is indeed simple money laundering. Labour donor without her permission
Nick at 64.
I am dumbfounded. Normally your posts at least make lucid arguments even if I don’t agree I can give you that, but on this you are way off beam.
You can be as critical as you like about the Conservative Party for giving the key role in their financing of marginal seats to someone whose tax residence is unclear, but it isn’t breaking the law.
You go on and on about your rival spending ‘unlimited’ amounts in trying to unseat you; I am sure you have every reason to worry about her campaigning activity but the fact is the costs *are* limited - to what we can legally raise by properly declared voluntary donations.
The main reason the Ashcroft fighting fund exists is to try and neutralise the impact of MP’s ability to self-publicise at the taxpayers expense.
MP’s these days have tens of thousands of taxpayers money to fund professional assistants, a constituency office, IT systems, newsletters, direct mail and so on which they use to promote the ‘good work’ they have done for their constituents; such as mailing a full colour annual report to every voter, every year.
These allowances are not supposed to be used for party political purposes but very revealingly The Times reports “Marginal MPs prove the biggest spenders in review of expenses”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2740546.ece
They were introduced by you, along with the existing funding clampdown and were widely seen as handing a massive incumbency advantage to sitting MP’s.
For you to be complaining about the legal, open and totally voluntary efforts by our party to change the Government (I call this ‘free democracy’) at the very moment when your party is mired in yet another unfolding scandal about breaking funding laws that you introduced is, frankly, breathtaking hypocrisy which I am sad to say just discredits you.
95 - Dave - PLEASE use this one at PMQs!
Please!
Today’s early oward of the OBN goes to post NO. 51
“award”
I have absolutely no objection to Lord Ashcroft using his money to further the aims and ambitions of the Conservative Party.
I do object to the fact that he does not live in this country.
I may have posted this before, (boring) the only people who should be able to vote, belong to, support financially or otherwise, British political parties, are British citizens domiciled in the UK, and those working abroad for a specified period.
If you have left this country to live, emigrate etc, you should no longer be able to take part in its political process.
We had the ludicrous situation a few years ago when a local councillor, (Conservative) went to live in Bermuda (?) and refused to resign her seat, saying she would continue to represent her ward: what nonsense!
Its time there was legislation, preventing these abuses.
Nick P also neglects to mention the scam of state sponsored money laundering - aka the “Union Modernisation Fund” (sic)- whereby millions of pounds of taxpayers money goes to trades unions for pressing issues such as improving their “communications” and - once they’ve had a cosy love in at Warwick University and literally told Labour Ministers what sould be in their manifesto for government - they donate back to the Labour Party, by pure coincidence, almost the same amount of money! All above board, of course Nick, wouldn’t you think?
Adam Boulton: “rumours are circulating which could bring down very senior figures, were they shown to be true…”
89 - to be fair you are misrepresenting Nick’s “proposals”. Nick’s proposals are a bit silly - i think the latest are providing the runner up with a “communications allowance” - what is the point of that if the use of the existing communications allowance is so apolitical? (they’d both say the same thing), but that’s besides the point.
Does Mr Abrahams have a similar vision for Durham that T “Dan” Smith had for Newcastle? See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/northeast/series2/tdansmith_newcastlepolitics.shtml
Perhaps the following extract from the BBC’s piece gives us a clue?
“One of the most criticised Smith plans was for high rise housing. The Cruddas Park housing scheme was part of T. Dan Smith’s grand plan for a ‘city in the sky’.”
Perhaps the centre piece of his Durham Green Business Park development will be a “Harriot Hotel2 or a clocktower called “Little Benn”.
111 - didn’t john howard just run a campaign based on union bashing. Remind us of how he got on?
112 - Ooh the plot thickens.
114. I mean “Harriot Hotel”
Some good news for Labour.
http://kerroncross.blogspot.com/2007/11/big-news-of-day.html
96. Test, you’re a bit behind the times.
The Tory frontwoman (Janet Dunn) who claimed she knew nothing about it has retracted overnight and now ‘recollects’ that she did inideed receive £25,000 from Abrahams in 2003 and gave him an ‘open’ cheque in return.
re 74 IIRC the Australian lower hosue uses AV. The seats must only be the same size as the UK ones so how on earth can it take so long to count them?
The Conservatives have already showed their skill at managing PMQs –two Labour “plants” have the first questions:
Q1. Shona McIsaac Cleethorpes ( assiduous press-the-flesher; counterbalances stoogey Westminster displays with locally appreciated successes” -Andrew Roth, The Guardian)
Q2 Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West):
Then a couple of old Tory buffers:
Q3 Sir Michael Spicer (West Worcestershire):
Q4 Mr Michael Ancram (Devizes):
119 - on reflection i think that is what Test said. “Blank cheque”.
120
so how on earth can it take so long to count them?
They’re Australians!
Nick Palmer is suggesting that it is ok to steal a BMW because your neighbour has a BMW and its “not fair” !
Hard to count with a Stubbie in your hand..
On the Abrahams interview last night on Newsnight there was and probably remains confusion as to why he failed to confirm that he had given money to Harriet Harman’s team. I found it puzzling at the time.
I think this was because the money was not given to her team by Abrahams but by his associate Kidd. I think Abrahams response to Paxman was in the context of the possible legal implications of the case.
This explanation may have been put forward by others here but I haven’t seen it. And of course I could be wrong.
120. Compulsory voting; about 70,000 ballots per seat.
110 Coldstone. As I have pointed out ad nauseam Lord Ashcroft is is domiciled in the UK, he is a registerd UK voter, and he does pay UK taxes.
He isn’t funding the campaign personally, he is in charge of redistributing the funds raised across the party and channeling those funds, using very strict criteria, into selected target seats.
There is no secret about this, he has a book on sale explaining the strategy to anyone who wants to buy it.
re 127 well there are UK seats which have had about 70,000 voters in the past (IOW) and it takes about 7-8 hours to count. Ireland counts the much more complicated STV in under 24 hours.
Have the Tories promised to abolish the MPs’ Communications Allowance? If so, it’s fair game - if not, they should surely shut up about it on here,
130 yes we bloody have
131. Do you have a link for that?
130: The Tories don’t want it abolished just for Labour MPs and ministers to stop abusing it.
112 Rod, Adam Boulton has broken a number of aspects to the donorgate affair.
126 stjohn I think you are right, Abrahams does fear a prosecution. He has also probably got a lot of signed photos with himself and senior Labour people.
126 stjohn - Following your lead, I’ve taken the 16-1 from Hills on Brown leaving office next year, down from 18-1 yesterday…grrh! I’ve decided he’ll survive 2007, but would be a mite miffed if you collected at 80-1. Now that really would be grounds for a name change to stjude!
has anyone else noticed how, as Gordo looks greyer and greyer his artificially whitened teeth look brighter and brighter, making, overall, a most ludicrous appearance; and boy doesn’t the poor chap look peeky. I don’t wish ill of anyone, but I wouldn’t give him life assurance
I took a walk around Nice and on two separate occasions I was approached by young men who handed me a piece of paper saying they were unemployed and could I give them money.
Ultimately this is why Innocent Abroad’s apocalyptic vision of a huge Tory majority won’t happen. People can only afford to spend time worrying about this financial trivia because so many of the social ills of the last Tory governments have now been put right.
And though we’d all like Labour to be whiter than white I for one would hate the country to go back to the rotten state it was in when Maggie was in charge.
Gabble “The Tory frontwoman (Janet Dunn) who claimed she knew nothing about it has retracted overnight and now ‘recollects’ that she did inideed receive £25,000 from Abrahams in 2003 and gave him an ‘open’ cheque in return.”
Yes the silly woman is reported to have said she signed a blank cheque but did not contribute to the Labour party. So Abrahams must have used the cheque to pretend she had made such a contribution?
Even if you ignore the not insubstantial issue of whether the Labour party knew all about this or not, surely several laws have been broken there?
But as Abrahams was well known to the Labour party ( Jay, Mendelson, Watt, Blair, Levy?) it seems inconceivable that the real source of this money was not understood, and if that is proven is that not both likely to lead to charges of accessory and conspiracy?
At the moment the Labour party’s defence is that they were stupidly ignorant of their own laws.
So are they crooks or idiots? Or both?
More bad news for HH
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/
136. Yes, he understandably looks like refried sh!te at the moment. However, I think the slightly disheveled look complete with food poisoning victim pallor actually works better for him as it looks more natural. When he puts the make-up on and adopts the carefully coiffured silver bouffant hair style the result is, frankly, the stuff of nightmares.
Short of time so just an umbrella repsonse to the various Tories above. They fall into two categories: (a) you disagree with what I propose for spending limits and (b) you think it’s hypocritical to propose them because of Mr Abrahams.
With respect to (a), we’ve discussed it many times and clearly won’t agree. To answer the specific question - no, I have not sent out anything using the Communications Allowance in red and yellow. I’ve sent a few letters on local issues in black and white, and I’ve done a non-partisan report on my activities. The header is in red (if it makes you happier, I can use blue next time, but then you’ll say I’m passing myself off as a Tory, no?). There is no reference to the Labour Party.
I’d argue that this sort of thing is mildly useful to incumbents, but not as good as partisan literature. However, even if you disagree, it isn’t a sensible position to argue that there should be no limit whatever to spending. If that *was* a reasonable position, then logically we should also abolish spending limits during elections, shouldn’t we?
In response to (b):
* I’m not attempting to equate breaking the law with anything. If Mr Abrahams or anyone else has broken the law which we passed to improve transparency, they should be prosecuted.
* The parallel wasn’t drawn by me, but by Marcus: he was in effect saying that because someone I don’t know has allegedly broken law X, I shouldn’t be talking about reforms to a different part of the system. Nonsense.
* Bob says I harp on about it, test is very tired of it, and Marcus says I go on and on about it. In fact, I’ve not raised the issue recently at all, but Marcus and others challenged me on it after the Abrahams story, so I’ve responded. What do you expect? No doubt if I’d not responded there would have been comments that I’d fallen quiet, had no answer, etc. If you don’t want the subject discussed, don’t challenge me to discuss it, eh?
139 As I have posted here before, several times, someone always knows and someone always tells!
137. Roger, if you thought about your example a bit more deeply you might wonder why France, which didn’t go through a period of Thatcherite modernisation still suffers from many of those economic ills, whereas Britain which did, has to a great extent managed to cure them.
Guido sticking boot into Mendelsohn
http://www.order-order.com/
138. I agree that some members of the Labour party must be either crooks or idiots. They deserve everything coming their way.
However, I don’t accept that you can say the ‘Labour Party’ as a whole is corrupt, especially as it was this government that brought in the transparency laws with which they are currently (rightly) being roasted.
Although I can’t stand the man, my begrudged respect for Tony Blair has only increased after the recent GB rail-crash. Did he know how to keep a lid on ‘events’ and to control the narrative, or what? His combination of charisma, shrewd ‘mea-culpa’ admissions and humour let him get away (possibly literally) with murder. My suspicion is that an awful lot of know-how left No 10 with him - including which donors were on the health list. GB is probably too arrogant to have ensured a proper hand over and his acolytes too impatient to take over for this type of expertise to have been transferred.
Nick Palmer How much have the unions and Cohen and Sainsbury and Abrahams and other donors giving more than 50k pa spent on the Labour party this year in cash and kind, and how much of that has been spent in constituencies?
Thank you for the response Nick, courteous as ever in what must be a tough time for you. I was wrong to assume that your CA leaflets are as bad as those the MP puts out in our marginal patch which are as I described and taxpayer funded Labour leaflets with everything except the word “Labour”. I think you would be embarassed to see them and would at least privately agree they were partisan.
We cannot have spending limits which eliminate our ability to counter these leaflets. It’s stealing an election and can’t happen in a just democracy.
I think Brown should be awarded “the Callaghan” award. An award giving to a Prime Minister, who despite having the upper hand politically, fails to call an election, and is forever haunted by his indecisiveness.
Depending on how he handles such a fact, may also allow him to forward for “the Heath” award, of losing what should have been a victory, disposed as party leader, and cursed to live the rest of his life on the back benches in bitter resentment.
145
Well the following have lied:
Straw Hoon
The following have taken illegal donations: Labour Party, Harman
The following knew about it: Mendelshon
Mendelshon’s boss in the election that never was ?: one Douglas Alexander.
I think on that basis a fair proportion of the higher command are corrupt, liars, incompetent or all three.
I emailed the MP for Blaydon (Ms Kidd’s MP) as follows:
Dear Mr Anderson,
Were you aware that Mrs Kidd one of your constituents had made significant donations to the Labour Party?
Were you aware of the actual origin of these donations?
His reply is a bit frustrating - does anyone here live in his constituency.
Reply from Mr Anderson
“My problem is that as part of the formal Parliamentary protocols I cannot engage in correspondence other than with or on behalf of my own constituents. In this situation, as in many others, that protocol frustrates me, but I am bound by it”
Dave Anderson, MP for Blaydon
I’m sure that there’s a very reasonable explanation to all of this.