It Appears that Sir Jeremy Beecham [NEC Chair] Knows Little and Care Less about Labour's Secret Loans
The NEC statement issued after their meeting this morning, didn't appear to bring us any closer to understanding how Number 10 runs it secret party finances.
It appears to be little more than an attempt to move the debate away from what happened - strange, because last week Tony Blair was telling us this meeting would answer the questions he couldn't at his press conference...
1. That the NEC resume its rightful responsibility for oversight of all matters of party funding and financing.
2. That the NEC authorise the NEC Officers, in conjunction with the Business Board, to undertake a review of events and present a report covering lessons to be learned for the future and a series of revised processes and protocols to be put in place. These will ensure that the appropriate structures are respected and preserved NEC accountability and the Labour Party’s internal democracy.
3. That the NEC welcome the recommendations of the Electoral Commission and agree that all future commercial loans agreed by the party be declared publicly, including their sources.
4. The NEC will fully co-operate with the Hayden Phillips inquiry. The NEC, in consultation with the Business Board, National Policy Forum and the wider party, will draft the Labour Party’s submission to the Phillips inquiry. The recommendations will take forward Labour’s manifesto commitments, the government’s legislative changes and the discussions on party funding from the January National Policy Forum in Nottingham. The final NEC recommendations will be brought to Annual Conference.
5. In the interim, the NEC officers will take responsibility for overseeing all matters concerning donations and commercial loans.
Sir Jeremy Beecham, the NEC chairman speaking at lunchtime was determined to underline the 'move on' message.
Sir Jeremy later denied that the Prime Minister had come under fire for signing off the loans without the knowledge of senior figures within the party, including the party treasurer, Jack Dromey. Sir Jeremy described this, diplomatically, as the result of "gaps in communication"
"There were not any harsh words at all, it was a very constructive debate," he said. "Everybody was concerned to move on. We recognise that there has been a problem, we are dealing with the problem and we want to move on."
Notice the repetition of the phrase "Move On" - and the absence of any reference to where the money is, how it is to be repaid, who banked it and where, why it was done in secret, who benefited, the relationship between private loans and the procurement of government contracts, or the fact the Labour party are £14,000,000 better off than almost everyone in the Labour party thought they were.
Well, by tonight the NEC was employing Labour's favourite defense strategy - claiming complete ignorance.
This performance by Sir Jeremy being quizzed by Paxman was simply embarrassing. Take the 5 minutes to listen to how little the NEC claim to know, and how little they appear to care about finding out what has gone on.
[archived here as a LoFi mp3]
So it is clear [and perhaps bleedin' obvious] that the Labour Party has no interest in explaining any more than it absolutely has to, what has going on with their accounts. If Sir Jeremy Beecham, the NEC chairman is to be believed, the NEC knows little, and cares less about being shafted by the Number 10 Party in the full glare of publicity.
So much for the Party holding the leadership to account!
The Conservatives are keeping silent, because they have got their own corpses buried under the patio of party funding, and are hamstrung by their own guilt.
The Lib Dems, well, I heard 'Ming the Merciful' trying not to say anything too harsh the other night, but they just appear to want to keep out of it - a rare occasion of the Lib Dems keeping Outof the shit...;)
There is of course a police investigation, but evidence is going to be hard to come by.
So unless Jack Dromey is incensed enough to "share" by Charles Clarke's traditionally cheap shot, it looks like we are reliant on the media to get to the bottom of this.
IMHO it is not the job of the media to hold the government to account, that is the job of those who masquerade under the title of 'The Opposition'. But once again, the politicians have let us down, and the media find themselves saddled with taking over their responsibilities.
There is a difference between investigative reporting, and holding our government to account, but the failures of our democratic process mean we are relying more and more on the media to perform the latter.
So the media need to know we want to know the answer, that we want to know where the money went, what the relationship is between the private loans and government contracts. How the money was accounted for, the involvement of No. 10 in the whole process and all the other questions that remain unanswered.
So when you read something, and there is an email address on the end - drop the writer a line, if there is a comment or feedback form, comment or feed back. Politely, clearly, keep asking them to find the answers to our questions, so when our elected representatives are telling reporters to move on because nobody is interested, they can turn round and say that they know we are.
We need to let them know we don't want this story to die just because politicians of all sides don't want to go there.
Not sure the issue should be
Not sure the issue should be left to the parties' executives. It really needs to be addressed within a framework that all parties need to adhere to. The Power Commission attempted to address this issue, however, its two recommendations (19 and 20) has many drawbacks, particularly the inbuilt disadvantage of smaller parties and those appealing to the relatively disadvantaged.
Left to the parties, they will forever find perfectly legal loopholes to defeat the principle of transparent accountability.
"There is of course a police
"There is of course a police investigation, but evidence is going to be hard to come by."
Has the police taken it up?
The whole episode reeks of devious but legally permissible sleaze rather than illegal fraud and if this is the case, police hasn't got anything to go on. It would be upto the party executive to determine what to do but as you report, they are determined to move on. It won't be an issue in the Commons either since all three parties have engaged in such practices.
Since neither the party executive nor the party treasurer were privy to either how election funds are raised or the state of party financial accounts, what really is the role of the NEC?
I apologise, my last post
I apologise, my last post wasn't clear. If these were loans at the prevailing commercial rate interest to hide them from public records, the police is unlikely to regard them as payments for anything, let alone for peerages that have subsequently been blocked. It would be a tough legal fight to prove the intent to break the 1925 statute when none of the lenders succeeded in receiving a peerage despite three of them were nominated.