Inconvenient Tory Truth

In the past two years, individual donations from bankers, hedge fund managers, private equity financiers and insurance executives have increased sharply reaching 58.5%

Ten individuals alone have given more than £13m since 2005 out of a total central office funding of £101m. The top donor is David Rowland who first made his money through property investment before investing more widely.

The simple fact is the Tory-party has become the political arm of a few hedge fund owners and City spivs; what they say goes. When they want a tax cut; it comes. When they want Tobin Tax opposed; it happens. When they want din-dins with the main man; it occurs. When they want a Lordship; it cometh fast and furious; indeed six hedge fund managers were among the top ten individual City donors, and two of the top ten – Stanley Fink and George Magan received peerages in 2010.

There is no evidence to suggest that any individual has used their influence to demand a relaxed approach to bank, hedge fund or private equity remuneration, tax or leverage limits until the comment last week. But everyone knows this tiny elite is effectively running the Tory party and legging over the rest of us; including thousands of Medway residents.

Bankers and financiers who were deeply linked to the global financial crisis have also been bank-rolling the Conservative Party the figures reveal. These include Jeremy Isaacs, the former head of Lehman Brothers in Europe and Asia, who has given £190,000.

A small group of powerful financial public relations leaders has also contributed nearly £500,000 to the Conservative Party. These include Finsbury and Pelham PR.

Cash for Access

David Cameron offering up Number 10 diner table for grubby money

With all the furore over the Cameron #cashforaccess scandal and the unmitigated disaster of the Conservative budget last week it is perhaps worth commenting upon that Labour will enter the next round of local elections in the strongest position for a decade.

The double whammy; standing up for an elite in the budget, and the fact that this same elite has access acccess to the upper echelons on Number 10, because of sums of money the average person spends over 20 years on a mortgage, is a massive and corrosive hit on the Tory party and its aspirations to be broadly representative. The same problem Tim Montgomerie was waxing on about last week; has just got a whole lot worse.

The Sunday Times video recordings of both Mr Cruddas and Ms Southern are extremely damaging and raise serious legal questions and perhaps rule breaking at the heart of the Tory party machine.

In one of these clips, Ms Southern says that she had spoken to the Conservative Party about the situation and that they said that money would have to come via “an individual, or individuals who are on the electoral roll”. Pressed by the reporters as to whether the Conservative Party would need to clarify this situation, Ms Southern said, “The Party, the Party won’t ask.”

The law is clear on the permissibility of donations to political parties. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) stipulates that donations are only permissible if they come from individuals registered on the UK electoral roll, or from companies registered in the UK.

(2) For the purposes of this Part the following are permissible donors—
(a) an individual registered in an electoral register;
(b) a company—
(i) registered under the Companies Act 1985 or the 1985 c. 6.Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, and S.I. 1986/1032
(ii) incorporated within the United Kingdom or another (N.I. 6).member State, which carries on business in the United Kingdom;
Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (page 42-43)

PPERA also stipulates that where a donation is received by way of another person, the party must be given details in respect of the original donor.

It does raise serious questions as to how the Conservative Party is soliciting donations,

• In soliciting donations which they believed to come from an overseas source, were Mr Cruddas and/or Ms Southern, or others committing a criminal offence?
• Is the reported method of soliciting donations from an overseas source as outlined by Mr Cruddas/Ms Southern standard practice within the Conservative Party?
• Why did Mr Cruddas, and Ms Southern, evidently believe that this practice was legitimate?
• Who at the Conservative Party advised Southern how the undercover reporters could get around electoral law?
• Do other donations to the Conservative Party ultimately come from overseas?
• It would also be helpful to know whether your Commission has been aware of the procedures which the Conservative Party have in place for ensuring full disclosure; and what if any precautions have they taken to ensure that sufficient disclosure is made to ensure that the donor is not acting for a third party.

Trade Union members and funding comes from millions of middle income and low wage British workers. The video appears and suggests that Tory funding comes from an elite tiny number of individuals via non-UK taxed companies.

Strood Conservative Scandal brews...

News this week which threatens to rock the Strood Conservative campaign for May's local election.

Information has been leaked to the press in advance of the Standard's Committee meeting that Porfolio Holder and Senior Cabinet Councillor (or comrade) Jane Chitty may have broken the cardinal rule of local politics - to live or work in the area that you seek to represent.

This blog suspects that there is no smoke without fire, but does raise the question about how, once again, it has taken so long for this case to be resolved.

This blogger stood against Councillor Chitty a full four years ago and it would be interesting to note when the information was revealed to Council chieftains.

Is it really co-incidence that Conservative Councillor Chitty has not been re-selected for Strood North, despite being a well known profile?

Dont think so.

If found guilty the Conservative campaign for Strood should perhaps be labelled; a record of inaction, a promise of even less as it will reveal the true calibre of selection for local candidates.

Strood North is a marginal ward and will be toughly fought in future weeks. The Conservative campaign can ill-afford this story miring the actions of the candidates on whether they live and work in the borough.

Labour candidates Cllr Stephen Hubbard, Linda Robson and Liam Curran all live in the Medway towns and have a record of action in the ward. They are standing up for the community against the £23.5m of Conservative cuts whilst money is gerrymandered to safer Conservative shire councils.

This case threatens to destabilise the Conservative campaign.

If found guilty it is but the honourable thing to do to expel the Councillor and issue a full apology to the people of Strood.

Sadly, given the prospect of a local election, one suspects that the conclusion of this case may have been timed to the benefit of... yes, you guessed it, the Conservative administration.

Update

According to sources Cllr Jane Chitty has been cleared by the Standards Committee. Pity this took so long to resolve as now Strood North Conservatives have picked an alternative slate of candidates.

Are you taking the piste, Mark?

Astounding revelations today from the News of the World that Rochester & Strood MP, Mark Reckless was skiing on a Parliamentary Ski trip whilst also campaigning on the South Eastern fair rises which have increased by 9% in Medway.

Mark Reckless MP accompanied other MPs including Prisons Minister, Quentin Blunt and Tory, Tim Loughton in an exclusive Parliamentary Ski Group trip to Switzerland. This group hired out an exclusive venue on the Davos slopes and dined and 'frolicked' in the £1,100-a-night Hotel Fluela for over 5 days.

Despite Mark being an avid Eurosceptic he was seemingly happy to sing German songs and socialise with our European partners in close quarters.

The skiing trip started last Sunday and ended on Friday apparently showed that Mark was not in the towns whilst apparently tweeting on fare rises.

The vacation came during the same week that he was able to articulate the views of hard-pressed commuters on the 4th January on twitter accusing South Eastern trains of being not 'fit for purpose.'

The Medway Conservatives are now open to the charge of being tasteless given the cuts agenda which is being foisted upon the public.

It raises serious questions about how much interaction Mark actually had with commuters at the time, given he was singing 'Ziggy Zaggy, Hoi Hoi Hoi' on the slopes of Switzerland.

Mark has been office less then a year but it now becoming very apparent that he has taken to the good life rather too much.

This blog is not suggesting that MPs are not entitled to a break, but given the sensitivites of huge increase in costs to residents across Medway, it could be considered tasteless for our representative to be living the high-life with fellow chums in Switzerland.

Update - 11/01/2011

This blog has been in contact with the MPs office who has clarified that Mark was actually in the UK whilst posting on the Train Fares and that he flew out to Davos at a later point.

I was not aware of this significant point, as was not disclosed in the News of the World Pirce, which has led me to change the above article to try and be fair to this point. Due to the legacy and damage of web-based blogs I have totally removed any area which could be considered unfair.

The News of the World article also did not disclose that the room prices were the maximum at the venue and may not indeed have the been the cost of the room that was paid by the MP.

In the interests of fairness this blog is happy to clarify this position. This change has been made in good faith.

All that remains to be said is that you should never trust the Murdoch Press and should treat articles from a such papers with a pinch of salt.

Coulson odds are shortening

MPs have decided to hold a new inquiry into allegations that some of their phones were hacked by journalists at the News of the World.

Well worth watching the ever capable Chris Bryant land some punches. Bryant is of course no stranger to the sting of investigative journalism, after he was caught revealing his white Y-Fronts on Gaydar in an act which damaged him at the time.

He has since recovered well and is widely tipped for a front bench position in the Shadow Cabinet.

Chris Bryant is widely respected amongst Labour back-benchers for his advice and oratorical ability. A former Anglican vicar and Conservative voting student, he has since reflected and seen the light and converted to Labour after witnessing Thatcherite cuts.

The cross-party Committee on Standards and Privileges will investigate whether MPs' phones were targeted, after Labour MP Chris Bryant claimed that such practices would amount to "contempt of Parliament".

Speaker John Bercow granted an emergency debate on the allegations on 9 September 2010.

At the end of the debate, MPs backed without a vote Mr Bryant's call for the matter to be referred to the committee.

Mr Bryant told the Commons he was one of the MPs who had contacted the Metropolitan Police, and was subsequently told that he was on a list of those allegedly targeted by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

The Latest betting prices from Political Smarkets – Will Andy Coulson leave? Yes 43% / No 70%.

Odds are shortening though...

Coulson in the spotlight

The Tory spin machine is tonight chugging and puffing away on overdrive as new insights are revealed from journalists working for News of the World former editor, and Tory spin supremo Andy Coulson.

Andy Coulson was employed by David Cameron to be his spin-chief extraordinaire after he resigned from his job, after it became clear that journalists in his office had been hacking into the phones of thousands of celebrities, royals and politicians.

In exploits which make the Draper incident look like shrivelled whitebait, this was organised spying on an industrial scale.

The allegations in the New York Times are so damning that Cameron must now do the honourable thing for the public and the electorate.

This is a major test of judgement for our young and inexperienced Prime Minister. He must fire Coulson.

The NY Times article makes clear that Glenn Mulcaire, a junior journalist at the time, had hacked his way into the messages of the royal princes, the aire-to-throne of England Prince William and his brother Harry. He went to prison, and although Coulson denied all knowledge of it, he subsequently resigned as editor. All along, the line of News International (the newspapers' owner) has been that this was just one bad apple, but the clear evidence is that it was a far more sustained campaign.

Two things remain truly disturbing from the article:

First, the Metropolitan police have failed to pursue the investigations with anything like the full vigour of the law. Despite having evidence that the tapping and hacking may have been far more extensive than Coulson or Mulcaire admit, the police have only investigated further or prosecuted in relation to a tiny proportion of those almost certainly affected.

Second, it seems extraordinary that Coulson is still the prime minister's director of communications. He has admitted that under his watch News International paid police officers for information. For all we know this was a regular habit. The New York Times claims that during his time he freely discussed Mulcaire-style "investigations" with his journalists and that these unlawful news-gathering techniques were pervasive.

This blog finds it hard to believe he didn't know how his scoops were being sourced, and if this is the case he has corrupted himself and the Prime Minister whose judgement on hiring the man must now be in question.

The most worrying aspect of all this is that unless the police take proper action, these illegal practices will carry on. And unless David Cameron sacks Coulson, he will be openly condoning some of the dirtiest politics in Britain.