Purnell was Telling Porkies
As Guido re-iterated on Sunday, Labour have not paid back the Abrahams money. So when James Purnell toured the Sunday morning broadcast newsrooms claiming that "we’ve given the money back" he was lying.
Angus MacNeil put Jack Straw on the spot in the Commons with his question: "Last week the Prime Minister, when he said unlawful activities had taken place, said the money would be returned. Has the £650,000 left Labour Party accounts and where is it now?" Jack replied evasively "I cannot answer that question. I don't know is the answer."
Some of the less bright Labour backbenchers got quite worked up about Ashcroft. Jack Straw, perhaps wisely, was not so keen on talking about billionaire backers. Wisely when you consider that Lord Sainsbury has given far more to Labour in an effort to create a social democratic utopia for Sainsbury's shoppers. Non-domicile backing for Labour from Lakshmi Mittal, Ronnie Cohen and Swarj Paul totals nearly £10 million, which is more than they have paid in UK taxes. The Labour leadership won't want too much scrutiny of their foreign backers...
Angus MacNeil put Jack Straw on the spot in the Commons with his question: "Last week the Prime Minister, when he said unlawful activities had taken place, said the money would be returned. Has the £650,000 left Labour Party accounts and where is it now?" Jack replied evasively "I cannot answer that question. I don't know is the answer."
Some of the less bright Labour backbenchers got quite worked up about Ashcroft. Jack Straw, perhaps wisely, was not so keen on talking about billionaire backers. Wisely when you consider that Lord Sainsbury has given far more to Labour in an effort to create a social democratic utopia for Sainsbury's shoppers. Non-domicile backing for Labour from Lakshmi Mittal, Ronnie Cohen and Swarj Paul totals nearly £10 million, which is more than they have paid in UK taxes. The Labour leadership won't want too much scrutiny of their foreign backers...
38 comments:
Bollox Guido: I've seen a photograph of Purnell himself handing over a cheque. So there.
Better tell that to the Toady Programme - they reported that the Electoral Commission had said that the money was being confiscated and our friend in the North was'nt getting it back.
Can I repeat my question from yesterday.
Can Labour confirm that the illegal payments totalling over £600,000 have been forfeited to the Electoral Commission as the law requires? (I note this is what the Today program believes will / has happened).
Also as the labour party confirmed that the money will be repaid to Mr Abrhams could he explain where that additional £600,000 will be coming from?
Clearly based on what the law requires (see my first question) and what Gordon Brown promised (the second question) unless the money is repaid twice over he won't be a man of his word. And considering this is a man who lead the last general election he Gordon of all people should know what the party funding laws (note laws not rules) are.
Labour compounded their original crime of laundering prroxy donations by attempting to 'return' the money, which is also againt the law. The money must be forfeited to the Electoral Commission, otherwise there is nothing to stop it being given straight back to Labour, this time legitimately. The law was framed to punish transgressors financially and Labour have been trying to squirm out of this ever since the shit hit the fan.
the whole concept of 'giving the money back' seems to be a smokescreen for having the dosh confiscated and given to the chancellor so it can be funelled to labour marginal seats as a 'communications allowance'.
Has Mad Hattie Hareperson QC MP and former Solicitor General, paid over the £5000.00 to the Electoral Commission?.
Guido, give her a bell.
08:46 anon,
Thought Toady did a pretty good job for their fraternal coleagues at nulab there. Avoided the story untill o6:45 , then refered to it as 'the ongoing debate on party funding'. They managed to include 2 nulab muppets asking about Ashcroft in the segment they broadcast.
True to form if his wiki page is anything to go by!!
From a brief view of the debate yesterday there appeared to be a concerted and rehearsed counter-attack from the Labour backbenches on Tory finances. It would be unusual for such a witless bunch to do anything on their own initiative, so presumably the Great Leader has decided to come out fighting?
Thanks Anonymous 9:10. Putting the Purnell geezer on the Tartwatch list. This guy has a great future. No wonder Gordo is Rockin , with a guy like Purnell in his camp bollocking things up.
Robinson's back:
"I have had blogger’s block in recent days. Having mastered who David Abrahams is, which Janet is which and what the law says about permissible donors I found myself feeling curiously empty. Until Mr Abrahams says more or reveals the documents he claims to have; until some other player breaks their silence, this story is unlikely to move very far. Rules have clearly been broken. Yes, laws too but let's remember that this is currently a case of "cash for what?" In other words, it is unclear what was in it for those breaking those rules and laws other than an awful lot of delayed grief."
Finds it hard to concede that laws have been broken. A mere technicality Nick?
It is becoming apparent that James Purnell operates at the quantum level of the physical universe, where there are no absolutes - time, space and truth are relative to the observer. How else can he be in two places at one time? When he says "we have given the money back", like Schrodinger's cat, the money is in two possible observable states at the same time, both in and out of the Labour Party's account. He saw it was gone, but if you look and find it's still there, hey that's quantum physics you know! I would supply him with my bank account details to provide a third possible locus for the money, but I fear they already have used and lost those details for other purposes.
By trying to bury Donorgate the BBC is doing itself no favours. The anger of most "ordinary" people over this affair is palpable -- they will begin to realize that if the BBC is stiffing them on this story, what about all the others?
When Labour are eventually turfed out in 2010, the BBC will need all the friends it can get to stave off the long-overdue and delicious revenge to be wreaked by the Tories. Unfortunately by then it won't have any friends, except the redundant bunch of careerists and petty criminals who used to populate the Labour benches.
Moreover, as knowledge about the inadequacy of TVL's collection of the licence fee grows, and as the economy starts to go tits up, more and more householders will scrutinize very hard the item in their annual budget which currently reads:
TV Tax ... £135.50
The BBC's chief preoccupation is its own survival. If it had any sense it would take the long view. However, it is so far up Labour's arse that it is being run by the same sort of people.
It will be broken up and sold off when the present funding agreement ends.
The BBC had the potential to be a great institution. What a shame it never was.
anon 9.39 - Purnell is obviously an adherent of String Theory - as in, string the media along with the idea that Labour is actually doing something until the buggers get bored and finds, oh I don't know, a Muslim school with a pair of pet rats called Jesus and Mary to get really scandalised about...
Whisper it quietly but the emerging view round the City is that Branson's bid for Northern Rock has already fallen apart.
It's provided Branson with lot's of cheap publicity which he loves but a huge wave of shit is heading Darling's way.
"stan morgan said
It's provided Branson with lot's of cheap publicity which he loves but a huge wave of shit is heading Darling's way."
Couldn't happen to a nicer useless idiot!
Peter Grimes
Virgin Bank - not bloody likely. Branson does not pass the fit and proper test. He may fool Darling but he won't get past King. Jon Wood of RAM, a 9.5% shareholder, will not allow Darling to hand NR to Branson.
Nationalisation talks are an attempt to get improved offers. But Darling, a virgin in the City, may well cock things up to the extent that he ends up running the Whitley Bay Branch of Bank of England Building Society previously Northern Rock BS.
Elecoral Commission's Parliamentry Advisory Group includes a Lord Elder.
The Sunday Herald in Scotland noticed that a Lord Elder was one of several noble Scottish Lords who donated £950 or so to Wendy Alexander. No wonder the wee beesom is so confident of 'clearing' her name.
More to the point, these Labour backers won't be wanting too much in the way of scrutiny of their activitities. If they get upset then bang goes the money.
Of course not one of the Sunday morning inteviewers had the wit to ask the simple questions as to when and how and to whom the money was 'returned', so Purnell's lies still stand.
Straw's performance was pathetic. But I enjoyed Skinner's cabaret intervention, quite up to the usual standards, I thought. We'll be sorry when he's gone.
You could see the fear in Harman's eyes, though. Maude was not really crisp, but with the goldmine of uncovered sleaze he didn't have to dig too hard.
Wait until the shit hits the fan with Alliance and Leicester, Bradford and Bingley and one or two others already teetering on the brink of insolvency due to the liquidity crisis. What's useless Darling and his master Brown going to do then?
At least one bank will go under within the next 6 months IMO with possibly another to follow.
The bearded wonder's 'bid' for Northern Crock has attracted the attention of the City News section of Private Eye.
"Purnell is obviously an adherent of String Theory"
Whereas Gordon Brown is evidently a fully paid-up subscriber to Chaos Theory....
Skinner is a busted flush. Has been for years since his illness and the affair. Shame, really.
If you think he's bad, you should meet his brother.
I quite like Frank Skinner...
stan morgan said...
Whisper it quietly but the emerging view round the City is that Branson's bid for Northern Rock has already fallen apart.
It's provided Branson with lot's of cheap publicity which he loves but a huge wave of shit is heading Darling's way.
Branson is a looting parasite that will only EVER get involved in anything if it lines his trousers with tons of more dead trees with Herr Majesty on them.
He is a joke and a disgrace and Darling has already put us all on the hook for £1400 each, with no end in sight, that £1400 easily just going to be multiplied into the double digits of this FOOL Darling writes any more blank cheques to bail out the wave of banking and building society defaults to come.
That wave described above is actually more like a tsunami of MERDE that will crash over Darling and DESTROY Rockin' Horse Cyclops - the tsunami was created by Greenspan, aided and abetted by Rockin' Boy over the last decade of fiscal mismanegement - the pound along with the dollar is going down the tubes, the house market is going to crash spectacularly, personal debt has never been higher, so that, when the recession hits, the populace will not be equipped to cope with the stagflation as a result of the Banking system implosion to come - all in all the ZanuLab shower are finished, and alas, so is this country for the time being.
The nappie-wearing traitor should be strung up and when the rioting starts in earnest in this country in the next two years he would be minded to crawl into the deepest hole he can find lest his jowelly neck feels the comfort of his ex-constituents.
@ anon and on and on
But how does he feel about you, though?
Incidentally, that bouffant 'creation' of his has got to be finest Terylene, hasn't it?
BROWN IS FINISHED.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- It may become the most calamitous premiership for at least 100 years. Less than six months after taking over from Tony Blair as U.K. prime minister, Gordon Brown has already stumbled through a series of disasters. He is, to use a popular word in the financial markets, a subprime minister and he leads a subprime economy.
...
Whether Brown succeeds may well depend on foreign-exchange markets. If the pound stays strong, the U.K. can ride through some choppy waters. If the currency weakens, the economy will start to decline and take Brown down with it.
....
But what if sterling started to fall -- not dramatically, but to a more realistic $1.60 to $1.70?
If that happened, the U.K. would be stoking inflation: Britain relies on imports, which would become more expensive if sterling fell. The Bank of England would be forced to keep interest rates on hold. It might even have to boost them to defend the currency. That would have a ruinous impact on the housing market and consumer confidence. It could tip the economy into recession, which would encourage currency markets to punish sterling even more. A vicious circle would have started, and that can be impossible to break.
Could it happen?
Many economists see sterling as suspended in mid-air. The U.K. has massive trade and budget deficits. For the past year, the markets have been pummeling the dollar. That will stop soon. Already, the U.S. trade gap is narrowing, and soon a German- style export-led recovery will be under way in the U.S. The currency markets will need a new target -- after all, traders have to sell something to stay in business. Sterling looks like a sitting duck.
It might well be the fragility of Brown's government that provides the trigger for an attack on sterling. Brown's problems are only just starting. It will be the foreign-exchange markets that finish him off.
There could be carnage in the economy next year, starting from January when fixed rate mortgages expire and credit card statements hit the doormat. Word is that Northern Wreck is now more certain to be nationalised. The Virgin offer is a con trick with lightweight financial backing and would turn as sour as Virgin cola. That's why HM Treasury have been back-pedalling over preferred bidder status over the last week. The amount of taxpayer's money at stake is about £40Billion if you count the guaranteed deposits - if that cannot be recovered Darling will be strung up.
Broon has only ever presided over an economy supported by printing more money, easy credit and cheap imports. All these are set to disappear and his ambitious spending plans for the public sector will fall to ruin, whilst the PFI will be an ever tightening garotte. This will only deepen his psychosis.
Labour's performance in the Commons yesterday in the political funding debate from Ministers to backbenchers was utterly shameful and the sooner this lot are kicked out of office the better.
Labour have broken the law - period- on donations - crying foul and trying to bring in the Tories and their funding from Ashcroft into the equation is pure and utter nonsense and obfustication. The Labour Party know that know they are caught bang to rights and squealing on about being all the "nasty tories fault" won't help.
Has Cashcroft paid ANY UK taxes GuF?
Is he not caught up in a LIE of SEVEN YEARS duration and counting?, backed by the then leader of the Tory Party and the Party itself?
Where does he live?
Where is he registered to vote?
Why isn't he living and paying tax here as promised?
Why does he say to the media he's donating direct when there is no trace of his doing so?
LIES LIES LIES! And Lord Ash got a Lordship, a big P as you say with his lies.
Abrahams got nothing but a reputation as a crackpot who's dangerous to know.
Chris Paul please desist or you will do yourself an injury.
What lies? Ashcroft hasn't said anything, via you or elsewhere has he, so how do you know what lies he may or may not have told?
Regards
Peter Grimes
We've had the obligatory Chris Paul piffle - but where's Gary Elsby (Stoke - the only person I have ever know to admit in public that they live there) ? Or has Mummy kept him in for the day? Inquiring minds need to know.
Peter Grimes:
So are you saying that William Hague, the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party of the day was lying on Ashcroft ... with Ashcroft saying he would deliver on the promises being made?
Between the two men and the party they said categorically that as a quid pro quo for receiving a Lordship he would move to the UK and pay personal taxes here. Seven years ago they said that between them. They have not delivered.
If Ashcroft did not assure Hague that he would deliver then Hague must be a great fool to have made such concrete assertions. Or Ashcroft fibbed to Hague, or Ashcroft's plans have changed, in which case his ermine should go back pronto.
Cameron was still dissembling on the matter on Andrew Marr's AM this Sunday. But he did admit that the promise was still being broken.
Ashcroft would not get a big P as an offshore tax avoider, job exporter, non resident etc and with a pretty thin case for becoming a peer apart from massive support for political life. He had been turned down at least twice.
And apparently he told the Guardian that he was now giving direct to CCHQ rather than to CAs via Bearwood but there is no trace of his own name in any Electoral Commission Register after 2001-2.
Unless I'm mistaken in which case I'll apologise immediately on discovering that.
A promise was made to come back and pay tax. He has done neither. But he treats our politics like a plaything.
Ooops - there should be a "never" or "not" after the second "Ashcroft" in that comment.
I got my dad a copy of Tom Bowers' biography of Branson for Christmas a few years back and he loved it. Most people don't realise what a shady spiv Branson truly is. He could eat a useless twat like Darling for breakfast and shit him out before lunch.
As for you Mr Paul, it would appear that Lord Ashcroft and the Conservative Party have broken no laws, and it would appear without any doubt that Mr Martin/Abrahams and the Labour Party have. Apart from the fact that you are a sock puppet, why do you have a problem getting your head round this simple state of affairs?
@ CP.
If Ashcroft has broken hîs promise.. . .
Not as bad as breaking the law though, is it?
Your fuckin nappy wearing rocking horse riding faggot gimp of a PM said your lot broke the law ..just deal with it!!.If Ashcroft had broke the law dont you think he would have been done for it retard.
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