Day 243: Harman

[afleitch]

Wow, 6 posts and no comment on that ball of news that appears to have caused strange memory lapses amonst the Labour faithful for the past few weeks. Come on chaps! Such partisanship is not doing our fellow forumites any favours

[afleitch]

Wow, 6 posts and no comment on that ball of news that appears to have caused strange memory lapses amonst the Labour faithful for the past few weeks. Come on chaps! Such partisanship is not doing our fellow forumites any favours

Would that be the innocuous, although seemingly misguidingly unlawful, £5000 donation to her deputy leadership campaign by David Abrahams through a proxy?

Furthermore, there is no reason to doubt why Harman shouldn't have thought that this donation came from a Mrs Kidd to her campaign in good faith

That's all there is to it

Dave

'Misguidingly unlawful' is still unlawful. But it's the line Labour push; Harman didn't know, Brown didn't know, Dromey didn't know (Benn did know but he shouldn't have let that one slip), Wendy Alexander didn't know about her own wee money spinner. (raising money for an election campaign with only one candidate) They also 'didn't know' when it came to Cash For Honours. So when faced with accusations of being crooked or institutionally incompetent, the government has chosen the latter.

While I would like to see a proper investigation into corruption regardless of 'who knew' the upside is that the public now see Labour as more sleazy and less trustworthy than the Conservatives during the darkest days of Majors administration (a few grand in paper bags and sex in a football shirt - oh the humanity! ) I'll be happy to take that and ride out the next 2-3 years.

[afleitch]

Quite. At the end of the day, has anyone actually got any favours as a result of giving money?

And that makes illegal donations okay?

May I also add, the recent affair is not 'sleaze'; it is corruption because it broke the law as opposed to breaking partisan pre-determined political conduct or 'morals.'

[afleitch]

Quite. At the end of the day, has anyone actually got any favours as a result of giving money?

And that makes illegal donations okay?

No, which is why the donations made by David Abrahams through intermediaries to the Labour Party are being returned and why the party's general secretary, who was aware of this arrangement, has resigned. The honourable thing to do on both counts, I'd say

Dave

It is not honourable. Abrahams donated through known intermediaries who were not aware money was being donated in their name. Identities were stolen and, in all likelyhood, signatures forged. Secondly returning the money does not undo an illegal and criminal act, not within the law anyway. It was a weasels way out of crisis. Maybe they needed the money in such an underhanded manner to fund Miranda Grell's appeal

[afleitch]

There's a difference between mis-directing donations and taking kickbacks.

Naturally. However the donation was still illegal. The identities of the proxy donors (who didn't know they were 'donating') were compromised and the law was broken.