David Cameron accepts thousands of pounds from people not able to give money to UK political parties.
Conservative response? “It’s a genuine mistake”.
Wendy Alexander accepts a fraction of that from someone not able to give money to UK political parties:
Conservative repsonse? Spittle flecked outrage.
Remember this.
The Conservative party accepted this money in August. In mid-November, at the height of the donor scandal, they “realised” it wasn’t permissible and forfeited the money to the electoral commission, saying nothing to anyone.
So in every statement the Conservative party has made since then about accepting donations from illegal sources, at every PMQs, at every interview, they have known that their Leader’s own party had done exactly what they accused others of doing.
It’s just they didn’t think it worth mentioning. Funny that.
Integrity? Openness? Straightforwardness? Yeah, right.
Therefore, in an effort to build common ground between the parties, I have adapted the official Conservative statement on Wendy Alexander to apply to another political leader who accepted donations from people not on the UK electoral roll and then tried to bury the bad news.
I trust we’ll be seeing it on Conservatives.com or a Tory blog soon…
“
Team AlexanderTeam Cameron broke the law.Team AlexanderTeam Cameron tried to cover its tracks over the illegal donations fromPaul GreenRoger Fletcher and Jeffrey Dobbs
“
Team AlexanderTeam Cameron is saying today that there was‘no intentional wrongdoing ‘a genuine mistake’. But the law is clear, and it was broken. Ignorance of the law is no defence. Next timeJackie Baillie is caught by the police doing 100 mph on the M8, Jeffrey Archer is caught lying to a jury willshe plead that it was a genuine mistake?It beggars belief that David Cameron
Wendy Alexanderknew nothing about what was done inherhis name, and for whichshe is legally responsible. But if David CameronWendy Alexanderknew nothing, ifshe was duped by her team, thenshe must name the guilty people and clean out the stable.“ His
Herdefence is thatshe is the mushroom ofScottBritish politics – kept in the dark and fed manure byherhis team.Scottishpolitics does not need this diversion. Bringing it to an end is inWendy Alexander’sDavid Cameron’s hands.”
14 Comments
December 18, 2007 at 9:05 pm
The local Conservatives here, Regents Park and Kensington North Conservative Association, accepted a £25,000 donation from an impermissible donor in February and had to forfeit it. Nobody has resigned.
“It beggars belief that Joanne Cash knew nothing about what was done in her name” etc etc.
December 18, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Mid-November wasn’t the height! of the donor scandal – in fact it hadn’t begun. As soon as we became aware of the oversight we informed the Electoral Commission and forfeited the donation.
ALL OF YOUR ILLEGAL DONATIONS WERE DRAGGED KICKING AND SCREAMING AS A RESULT OF QUALITY JOURNALISTIC INQUIRY. NAME ONE INVALID DONATION IDENTIFIED BY YOUR OWN PARTY.
December 18, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Good old Praguetory never disappoints. Definitely a toy ejection from pram incident there!
December 18, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Interesting declension there from PT.
‘We have made an oversight.
They have committed a criminal act.’
Anyone wonder where the paper found the story? Perhaps they had some help from the Tories?
Weren’t some of the dep leadership campaign donations identified internally?
Nice site, Hopi – added you to the links section on my little blog as well, thanks to the good Cllr Bob bringing you to my attention.
December 19, 2007 at 12:25 am
err Prague, hold up one moment – you do do realise that I’d be delighted to grant that you’re right about the dates.
After all, it would mean that _every_single_time_ David Cameron spoke about the inequity of accepting illegal donations he knew that he’d done exactly that- but decided that for some reason this wasn’t relevant to any discussion of party funding…
..which makes him look more of a hypocrite, not less.
December 19, 2007 at 12:34 am
PS Prgue, you might also want to read the Times today, which makes clear that
a) The donations were uncovered as illegal by the Electoral commission
b) The Tories decided to return them only after the electoral commission called them on the donations. You didn’t inform the commission. they checked up and caught you out .
c) The Tories (and David Cameron) then kept this to themselves during the ensuing storm over donations to labour.
Yeah, really high minded that.
read all about it here..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3070900.ece
December 19, 2007 at 9:05 am
[...] I’m utterly flabbergasted. Staggered at his bare faced cheek. Reading today’s papers about David Cameron’s illegal donations leaves me almost speechless. Hopi Sen says it for me. [...]
December 19, 2007 at 9:54 am
[...] lays it out clearly here. Northern Monkey’s pissed off. Iain Dale attacks his old text message mate Dave with a [...]
December 19, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Excellent analysis – cheered me up no end in these difficult times
You might also want to point out how Richard Hardyment at CCHQ was already making FOI requests about Abraham’s planning permission requests before the Mail on Sunday “broke” the story about Abraham’s use of agents for his donations. It is also worth commenting on how the “sock puppets” would be reacting if the BBC gave as low prominence to the Labour donations as they did to those by Cameron.
The whole thing about using agents for donations is something which needs a lot more examination on the Tory side. It is fairly clear that agents should not be used as a means for hiding the identity of donors or allowing otherwise impermissible donors to make donations. Serious questions need to be asked as to whether Lords Ashcroft and Laidlaw used their companies as agents for their donations and whether they were permissible donors in their own rights (i.e on the Electroral Register). The following quote from the Sunday Telegraph back in 2004 would appear to be a pretty good indication that IIR is an agent of Laidlaw.
“”All the donations made to the Party have been personal donations, made by our chairman, Lord Laidlaw of Rothiemay,” said an IIR spokesman.”
December 19, 2007 at 7:28 pm
[...] a pair of public school boys who can’t even run the leaders constituency association without breaking electoral law by accepting illegal donations. Then Eton “Dave” or lets face it Iain some flunky in CCO kindly told him to get [...]
December 20, 2007 at 12:17 pm
[...] December, 2007 David Cameron wants to run the British economy yet can’t even run the accounts of his constituency association without taking illegal donations then their was his previous role helping out with the British economy when he was Norman [...]
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