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It's Payback Time

Posted April 23rd, 2006 by quarsan
in

Tony's plan to fund his party within a party is running into trouble. His backers want their money back. No Peerage, No Pay!

Gordon Crawford, said he had formally notified the Labour party that his £500,000 loan must now be repaid with interest. “The money was a commercial loan and it has already reached the end of its term,” he said. “Last month, I notified the party that it will be repaid. We are now in the period where it is due.”

The identity of the second man demanding repayment is not known. However, it is thought to be Nigel Morris, the American-based founder of the Capital One financial services group, who lent the party £1m. He was unavailable for comment last week.

A further two of the 12 businessmen who lent Labour a total of almost £14m are also expected to demand that their money is repaid later in the year, although the party has yet to be formally notified. In total, Labour will therefore have to find at least £3.5m by October.

So, to pay that lot the party will, quite literally be up for sale. The headquarters look like being sold of, but because of an outstanding mortgage, that'll only raise a half million...

It gets worse. In a move that is taking people aback, Transparency International, a highly respected investigator into worldwide corruption has handed the police an eight page dossier that soberly lists the crimes that may have been committed.

The possible criminal offences that TI UK suggests may have been committed - after a detailed legal analysis of the reported facts of the affair - are bribery, two separate counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, false accounting, conspiracy to defraud, fraudulent trading, and offences under the Competition and Enterprise Act.

The Cash For Peerages scandal is now a major issue and one that won't be going away. Will New Labour spin their way out of this? I think not. True after Hutton et al we don't think that the Met are going to charge Tony - they owe him too many favours - but there may be something like Hutton, where the cover-up is so obvious that people simply don't believe it.

It is possible that the police, who will always be with us, may not want their reputation being so heavily damaged by transient politicians.

It may come down to how New Labour react. Will the thieves fall out? I think they just might.

Lord Levy, nicknamed Lord Cashpoint after raising £40 million for Labour over the past decade, has said he will not be the "fall guy" for Tony Blair over the cash-for-honours affair.

Sources close to the peer said he would tell police that he was against getting wealthy backers to offer secret loans, instead of publicly declared donations, but was urged to do so by Mr Blair to save the party from bankruptcy.

Transparency international

On April 23rd, 2006 Dick Cheney says:

Transparency international receives a million a year from the British government to expose corruption:

“Corruption remains a huge global problem, undermining economic growth and ruining lives,” said Patrick Mahassen, TI’s Director of External Resources. “Support from enlightened donors like DFID helps diminish it, bringing us ever closer to achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Transparency International is honoured and encouraged by DFID’s trust in our ability to lead the worldwide fight against corruption.”

http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2006/11_04_2006_dfid_ti_release

It reminds me of when the Bush regime discovered that they had funded this piece of research:

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~hannahk/conservatism.html

Corruption of the political

On April 24th, 2006 sona says:

Corruption of the political process by big money is endemic.

Here's a a tidbit from the USA of the never ending revelations that keep on coming.

Katherine Harris served as the cochair of Bush's election campaign and presided over the Florida recount in 2000. She is running for a Senate seat in Florida. Her campaign has been already compromised by evidence of illegal contributions ($32,000) from a defence contractor, Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty in relation to ex Republican Rep Duke Cunningham's eight year sentence for bribery and corruption. Just recently it came to light that she was treated at a restaurant by Wade to the tune of $2,800. When confronted by the media, she insisted that she had reimbursed the restaurant. When asked why reimburse a restaurant that has already been paid, she walked off. Later in the day her campaign office issued a statement to deny that anybody has been reimbursed. The next day the office stated that she would contribute $100 to a local charity.

Go figure how $100 charitable donation resolves(?)/absolves(?) a $2,800 restaurant treat by a self confessed briber.

This is in addition to Harris' marketing of 'celestial drops' for genuine medical complaints which turned out to be water, albeit blessed.