Loan scandal hangs over Britain's Blair

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603190414mar19,1,6443176.story

LONDON -- Compounding woes for Prime Minister Tony Blair, his Labor Party acknowledged Friday that it had received more than three times the amount it previously had reported in secret campaign loans.

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In a statement Friday, the Labor Party said it had taken loans worth $24.5 million from individuals, more than three times the $7 million it had reported previously. It did not say who had made the loans, which accounted for most of the $31 million Labor said it spent on last May's elections.

News reports had identified three of the lenders as wealthy businessmen who had been recommended by Blair for peerages, an honor that brings a title and membership in the House of Lords. Each had made a loan worth more than $1.75 million.

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In an editorial Friday, The Independent newspaper said that of 23 people who had donated more than $175,000 to Labor, "17 have been granted a peerage or a knighthood."

...more...

Do you get to throw out the first bowl at the Ashes?

You might get to sit on Parliamentary committees too, or even get a government job, eg Paul Drayson, Labour donor, recipient of government contracts, and now Minister for Defence Procurement.

Knighthoods are purely honorary; you get called 'Sir', and your wife 'Lady'.

Both the Labour Party Treasurer Jack Dromey and the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott claim to have been kept ignorant about these loans.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4810670.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4821702.stm

Assuming they are telling the truth this begs the questions

a) Was the money being kept in special bank accounts separate from the main party funds ?

b) Who had access to these accounts ?

c) On what was the money spent ?

If Blair and his cronies have been running their own political organisation within the Labour party with its own cadre of members, policy agenda and funding then they have almost certainly breached the Party's constitution which specifically prohibits such activities. Although, these rules were put in place during the 1980's to prevent the infiltration of the Labour movement by far left Trotskyist groups, they would seem to apply equally to what has been going on here. The penalty for this offence is expulsion from the party. Now I very much doubt whether there is anyone in the Labour organisation who is going to take Blair to the wire on this issue but he is frittering away his political capital with the party at an alarming rate. There is certainly a lot more dirt to come out on this subject.

Beth Gardiner, Canadian Press
Published: Sunday, March 19, 2006

LONDON (AP) - A furor over secret loans to Tony Blair's Labour party and charges that he sold seats in the House of Lords to party backers is denting public trust in the British prime minister. Blair has denied he handed out nominations to the Lords in exchange for funds for the party, but his deputy refused Sunday to categorically say the allegations were false.

A new poll showed that nearly half of Britons believed the charges and more than 70 per cent thought Blair's government was at least as sleazy as that of his predecessor, Prime Minister John Major.

That's a worrying statistic for Blair, who trounced Major in 1997 partly because the Tory had been so badly damaged by a string of embarrassing scandals. Blair promised then that his government would be "whiter than white," words some are now throwing back in his face.

Blair has acknowledged his Labour party took nearly 14 million pounds, or about $28 million Cdn, in loans from supporters ahead of last year's general election. The law requires that gifts to political parties must be made public, but it does not cover loans and the party kept them secret until a newspaper reported their existence last weekend. <snip>

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=e5777218-c08b-4f92-96ac-39423e817fb5&k=45258