Saturday, January 12, 2008

Bloggers Make Further Financial Allegations Against Brown

Guido and Dizzy have posts related to alleged misdemeanours in Gordon Brown's leadership campaign. Guido alleges that Brown owes the Labour Party £32,000, while Dizzy has the potentially more damaging allegation that the company which managed his website and campaign videos aren't mentioned as benefactors with the Electoral Commission. It is entirely possible, of course, that they charged the campaign a full commercial rate. And then again, pigs might fly. It is the law that you have to declare any benefits in kind which amount to more than £1,000 - the difficulty is quantifying the cost. In this case, it would be fairly easy for Silverfish to do as they no doubt provide the same services to other clients.

17 comments:

AloneMan said...

And if they managed his campaign website that's not one but several thousand pounds of benefits in kind. These guys charge serious money.

Anonymous said...

If Gordo required a 'dodgy' video for his purposes why on earth did he not call on the services of his friend Tam Watson MP?!?! I'm sure Big Tam would have stopped filming Sion Simon for a couple of minutes to do Gordo proud! Would have cost the tight Scottish git nout as well! He missed a trick there!

Man in a Shed said...

The underlying charge here is incompetence.

If I made similar mistakes as a company director then criminal charges would follow.

But New Labour is shameless, hopeless and it appears above the law.

( I wonder if Brown will confirm that the law has been broken, as he has been honest enough to do it the past. Oink flap. )

Ross said...

Er why did Gordon Brown need a leadership campaign? He was in a one horse race.

copydude said...

Womble On Tour said:

"These guys charge serious money"

Um . . . the business starter pack, with four information pages, is just £100 plus hosting.

strapworld said...

What has happened to all this money, as it was not used for the purpose it was donated?

Which charity has our dear and beloved one eyed leader given it all to?

Anonymous said...

Not just bloggers see today's FT Page 2, it reports on Brown's little 'oversight' on the 15% levy...

Anonymous said...

Before Christmas the Tories were worried that Labour scandals and cock ups were coming a little too thick and fast. They wanted them to be spread out a bit, for maximum impact.

Looks like that is now happening. Meanwhile, I suppose, the civil servants are actually running the country and making a hash of it, as usual.

By the way, does anyone really believe that Hain's oversights were caused by his giving first priority to his ministerial duties? I bet his deputy leadership campaign absorbed all his energies, for many weeks, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what all the fuss is about. It's jolly easy to lose £100K down the back of the sofa and forget about it.

Anonymous said...

Hain's statement: "I am now making immediate arrangements to repay £25,000 of the monies raised by or through the PPF as it came in the form of an interest free loan."

Did it indeed? Can we see the paperwork?

Anonymous said...

I see that Hain's managed to keep his job. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Anonymous said...

The time has come for a full police investigation into Labour Party funding. We now have masses of prima facie evidence of widespread fraud, law breaking and total disregard for parliamentary rules. The police/judiciary need to find some balls and get on with a thorough investigation if not we risk a total breakdown of trust in politics. why should anyone stick to the laws passed by this inept government if MPs are above the law? an apology holds no sway with the police when joe public breaks laws and nor should it when ministers break the LAW.

this government is corrupt to the core and needs to be held to account. with the peerages route to funding now closed nulab resorted to using the property/planning process to rake in funding and this has now been exposed. we now have diamond dealers giving interest free loans to low rent idiots in a non event contest.

If the police do not do their job then their own job will become impossible as the public start to ignore laws willy nilly.

Time for Cameron to step forward and promise a full inquiry into party funding when elected. even if the Tories face some embarrassment as a result its worth it to flush out this nulab scandalous government.

Anonymous said...

"Hain's statement: "I am now making immediate arrangements to repay £25,000 of the monies raised by or through the PPF as it came in the form of an interest free loan."

hes on he phone to Picture loans

Anonymous said...

Has Hain bothered to explain why it took him so long to declare his accounts?

Isn't it odd that PPF has no body of published work, no researchers when it claims to be a think thank?

Did Hain explain why PPF was backing him with money after this wretched 'contest'?

The BBC claim that Hain made the statement and took no questions.

Anonymous said...

Pfft I have to say, I have absolutely no love for the Conservatives at all but why exactly this Hain saga is going to be dragged out against the concepts of ministerial responsibility I dont know. Cameron had the right idea accepting Davis' resignation, its not so much about "I didnt know about it" as it is hard lines but having a bit of pride!

P.S Clegg's making a cracking start

Alan Douglas said...

Did we think that Labour had lost its desire to nationalise things ?

We were wrong - they have very successfully nationalised sleaze ....

No more dodgy brown envelopes to obscure back-benchers, New Labour sleaze starts and finishes right at the top of its leadership, past and present.

Alan Douglas

Anonymous said...

The Daily Mail came out with the story highlighting the Brown donation to the Labour Party (the 15% tithe) back in December.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=505341&in_page_id=1770

As a matter of interest Hain donated £11,550 which was recorded as having been accepted by Labour on 18/09/07 - this suggests the donation was given no more than 30 days prior to that date. It would be the correct sum on a total of £77,000 donations.

Assuming the Labour Party accepted the donation within 30 days of receipt (as they are required to do), it suggests that somebody, in August / September worked out the figure and remembered to pay the Labour party for Hain, but didn't know about, or failed to report to the Electoral Commission, the other donations.

So whilst Hain puts the failure to report down to "Poor Administration" it wasn't so poor that they forgot to pay Labour...

Gordon Browns campaign, meanwhile seem to have.