The Nether-World

No Charges in Cash for Honours Scandal

2007-07-20T02:19:00.000+01:00

The BBC is reporting that there will be no charges made against anyone in the cash for peerages investigation. None. Not even for Lord Levy who was up to his neck in the giving of peerages in return for donations and 'loans' to the Labour party and who has been arrested more than once. I had always suspected that Tony Blair would get away with it but I am surprised that no one else is being charged. I can only repeat what Mr Eugenides said at this point.

Apparently there was no evidence to prosecute, something I'm finding hard to believe after nearly a year and a half of investigating and clear signs of a cover-up. Obviously this is not the end of the matter even if there are to be no prosecutions. There is still to be the Parliamentary inquiry which was put on hold until the police investigation was completed. The Blairites involved in the scandal will, no doubt, be crowing about how they have now been exonerated. I think enough information came out during the investigation to demonstrate sleaze if not corruption. We can also expect a major smear campaign against Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates and his team. Eyebrows are going to be raised at the Crown Prosecution Service who made the decision not to prosecute. I'm sure there will be plenty of recriminations over the next few weeks.

Tags: Cash for Honours, Sleaze, Blair, New Labour

Sleaze In America - Sleaze In Britain

2007-03-06T19:16:00.000Z

Two sleaze stories today, one from each side of the Atlantic. First, in the USA Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury. When he is sentenced in June, he faces up to 25 years in prison.

He was accused of lying to the FBI and a grand jury over revelations about CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

Libby's lawyer said they were "very disappointed" at the verdict, and would ask for a new trial, or would appeal.

Libby was found guilty on four out of five counts. He was acquitted on one count of lying to the FBI.

I haven't blogged much about this case but the BBC has an at-a-glance article about the trial and also other links to the background of this story for those who are unfamiliar with it. In short, it concerns the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame whose husband, Joseph Wilson displeased the Bush administration by disputing Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Niger. The trial itself, however, is about the cover-up (isn't it always?). More updates on this can be found at Firedoglake and Iain Dale has a report. too.

Over in Britain, the sleaze story is the on-going saga of the cash for peerages scandal. The story all week has concerned a document (not an e-mail apparently) and an injunction placed on the BBC to prevent them revealing who sent it, who it was for and what it was about. This was a request by the police. The injunction was partially lifted yesterday so it could be revealed who sent it to who but not much else. Today the whole injunction was lifted revealing what most observers suspected anyway, namely that this document was written by Ruth Turner to her boss Jonathan Powell and it concerned Lord Levy whose position is now looking more precarious than ever.

There has been much speculation as to whether it was Downing Street that leaked the details in order to prejudice any trial. This is, of course, vigorously denied. After calling his arrests and the police behaviour "theatrical", Lord Levy is now demonstrating his own skills in theatrics as he denounced the "prejudiced and distorted view" of the cash-for-honours affair presented by leaks to the media and played to the gallery by appalling for public sympathy. It is possible that Ruth Turner was concerned that Lord Levy was asking her to alter her evidence, something Levy denies. If true this opens the way for charges of perverting the cause of justice (again, it's the cover-up rather than the original crime). The Guardian defied the injunction and broke the story which has caused the row as to who is doing the leaking in this case. Lord Levy blames the police, and everyone else seem to be blaming Lord Levy or Downing Street.

Tags: Lord Levy, Lewis Scooter Libby, US Politics, Cash For Peerages, Sleaze, Corruption, New Labour

Cash For Honours - The End Draws Near

2007-02-05T06:51:00.000Z

Tags: Blair, Lord Levy, Cash For Honours, Sleaze

"Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his friends for his life" - Jeremy Thorpe speaking of Harold Macmillan's 1962 Night of the Long Knives when he sacked most of the senior members of his cabinet to save his political career.

The Times is reporting that three of the people questioned by the police in the cash for honours scandal are likely to face charges. This must mean that the police investigation is drawing to a close and we'll soon be waiting to hear what the Crown Prosecution Service has to say. It appears that someone questioned by the police has been singing like a canary.

Crown Prosecution Service lawyers have received files from the police indicating that charges should be brought against three people, although the inquiry is continuing.

“I would be very surprised if they are not charged,” a prosecution source told The Times. The same source said that Tony Blair was likely to be interviewed by the police for a third time because he had yet to answer certain questions.

So who are the people who are likely to be charged? It would seem on the face of it that Tony Blair might escape prosecution and it will be his minions that will carry the can for the Right Honourable Gentleman. Obviously Lord Levy is top of the list as he's been arrested twice so far. Naturally he's still protesting his innocence and has once again said that he will not swing for Tony Blair.

Tony Blair's chief fund-raiser Lord Levy is ready to tell the police that the Prime Minister is to blame for the cash-for-peerages scandal.

The Labour peer is furious that he has become the prime suspect.

And he is ready to defend himself by arguing that Mr Blair, not him, should be made to take full responsibility for the affair.

This is at least the second time Lord Levy has stated that he won't be the fall guy for Tony. To be fair to him he does have a point. Only the Prime Minister can bestow honours on people. But it does seem that the noble lord is in it up to his neck, and let's not forget that the second time he was arrested it was in connection to a potential cover-up. Perverting the cause of justice is a far more serious crime.

Ruth Turner, Downing Street's director of government relations is also in the frame following her recent arrest (again on suspicion of perverting the cause of justice). This means that her boss, Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's chief of staff might also face further questioning and possible arrest. So who has been spilling the beans? Well it seems possible that it might be Tony Blair's director of political operations John McTernan. Back to the Times article:

A CPS source said that the case had been strengthened by the testimony of John McTernan, the Prime Minister’s director of political operations, who gave a different account of discussions about honours from that given by other Downing Street figures questioned.

Oh dear, perhaps it was this that has re ignited what was beginning to look like a moribund inquiry. The Government has in recent days pulled out all the stops in trying to deflect attention from this investigation and create the impression that it was going nowhere after 11 months. We've had MPs and Cabinet Ministers as well as peers either coming out against the investigation or insisting that Blair should stay on as Prime Minister and friendly 'journalists' also saying to the police in effect "shit or get off the pot". We've had anonymous leaks in the case of the alleged plot in Birmingham which some police suspect may be politically motivated. If all this sounds like desperation, it probably is. Tony Blair is not out of the woods yet. There is already speculation that he might be questioned for a third time by police, perhaps under caution. Even if he himself is not charged, he will be very badly damaged if his closest members of staff are charged. This might mean that he will be visited by the dreaded men in grey suits.

It is starting to look like Blair won't be able to hang on until the summer as he intends to. The irony is that it will be a scandal which is relatively trivial in comparison with the far more serious crimes committed in Iraq which forces him out. But then Al Capone was caught out on tax evasion rather than his violence and racketeering.

Sleazy Levy keeps shtum

2006-07-24T03:04:00.000+01:00

When Lord Levy was arrested a couple of weeks ago for his involvement in the ‘cash for peerages’ scandal, he described the arrest as unnecessary and "entirely theatrical". His lawyer, Neil O'May went out of his way to convince us how co-operative his client was being with the police investigation.

"Lord Levy has always been ready and willing to co-operate and to meet the police at any time of their choosing.

"He has always been only too willing, also, to provide the police with any documents that they might have needed, and he continues to do so."
Source

He also said Lord Levy hoped the police would "concentrate" on their investigation and "bring it to a swift conclusion". After he was bailed, Levy told reporters "I have been helping the police with their inquiries”. So it is surprising to read that this was not exactly the case.

POLICE are expected to postpone plans to interview the Prime Minister over “cash for honours” allegations because Lord Levy has refused to answer their questions.

Detectives, who had hoped to interview Tony Blair by the end of September, could stall their plans because Lord Levy has read them a written statement and said “no comment” when they probed further.

As a result, Whitehall sources claimed yesterday that plans to interview Mr Blair by the end of September could be put on hold, forcing the cost of the inquiry to spiral.

The disclosure will prompt speculation that Downing Street or the Labour Party may be behind the stalling tactic, hoping that the police inquiry will shudder to a halt.
Source

This strikes me as a strange way to co-operate with the police in order to get the ‘swift conclusion’ he said he wanted. Does this mean that once again Teflon Tony is off the hook? He has already said that he will not be the “fall guy” for Tony Blair over the scandal, so who is he protecting, himself, the Prime Minister or both of them? If Lord Levy is trying to give the impression that he is entirely innocent in these matters then he is going the wrong way about it.

Of course this could just be a delaying tactic to avoid embarrasment at the Labour Party conference in September when there is a possibility that Blair may announce that he is stepping down and wouldn't want to give the impression that the Police investigation influenced his decision. Perish the thought.

Tags: Sleaze, Lord Levy, Cash For Honours, Blair

Middle East war crimes and a possible rift between Blair and the Foreign Office

2006-07-21T07:49:00.000+01:00

Image by Beau Bo D'Or via Blairwatch

The situation in the Middle East is continuing to deteriorate as Israel fails to do any significant damage to Hezbollah and has instead inflicted massive damage on the people and infrastructure of Lebanon. Rather than try to resolve the conflict in a more productive way, Israel has decided to step up its collective punishment on innocent civilians safe in the knowledge that it has a green light from the USA and Britain. As the foreign nationals leave Lebanon the attacks will escalate into all out war.

ISRAEL ordered all civilians to leave southern Lebanon yesterday so that it can wage all-out war against Hezbollah, including a possible ground offensive.

Using radio broadcasts and text messages to local officials, the Israelis told the remaining inhabitants to move above the Litani river, about 25 miles north of the Israeli border.

[…]

About 800 foreigners were evacuated by sea, leaving Tyre’s remaining inhabitants fearing the worst. “The foreigners have gone. That means the war will really begin now,” said Hassan Bazzi, a port worker. Amir Peretz, Israel’s Defence Secretary, said that a full-scale ground attack to stop Hezbollah rockets was an option. “Let no terror organisation feel we would cower from any operation,” he said. “We have no intention of conquering Lebanon but if we have to act to complete our tasks and reach a victory we will do it.”
Source

If Israel does decide to re invade Lebanon up to the Litani River which was the land it annexed the last time it invaded before it was thrown out by Hizbollah after an 18 year occupation, then the crisis will escalate significantly with the hitherto inactive Lebanese army forced to defend its land (not that Lebanon has a particularly effective army).

Officially Britain is still supporting and encouraging Israel in its current rampage in line with US foreign policy, as one would expect an obedient client state to do. The unbalanced situation was illustrated beautifully by the front page of today’s Independent which shows on one side all the states demanding an immediate ceasefire (as has UN Secretary General Kofi Annan) and the only three states blocking any such move; the USA, Israel and the UK.

Two countries, the US and Britain, defiantly refused to back the international clamour for an immediate ceasfire between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas. Their ambivalence about civilian deaths in Lebanon has given Israel a powerful signal that it can continue its attacks with impunity.
Source

However, the huge number of civilian casualties, damage to infrastructure and singular lack of success Israel is having in defeating Hizbollah is creating a rift between a subservient Tony Blair eager to please his master and an increasingly worried Foreign Office which has looked ahead at the looming spectre of war crimes tribunals. It should surprise no one that indiscriminate bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime, as is complicity with such actions. A quick look at principles of the Nuremberg Charter (particularly principles VI and VII) will confirm this. And, of course, collective punishment of innocent civilians is also contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention. It is a given that Israel is as guilty as Hell when it comes to war crimes but if the UK is found to be complicit in these crimes then it too is liable to prosecution unlikely though that may seem at the moment.

Margaret Becket has tried unsuccessfully to appear both concerned for the plight of the Lebanese and Palestinians and also tough on terrorism, satisfying nobody.

Ministers faced strong criticism from across the House of Commons yesterday as MPs accused the Government of helping to fuel the crisis in the Middle East.

Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, faced angry claims from Labour and Opposition benches that the Government had given diplomatic cover to continued Israeli bombing by failing to call for an immediate ceasefire.

In the Commons, Labour MPs led by Clare Short, the former international development secretary, attacked the Government for its stance on Israeli attacks.

Ms Short warned that "massive killing of innocent Lebanese civilians and destruction of infrastructure" amounted to a war crime. She said: "We are heading for further violence and catastrophe. And I'm sad to say that our Government is following President Bush's errors and pouring petrol on the flames."
Source

A rift is now opening up between Downing Street and the Foreign Office which is reminiscent of the difference of opinion between Jack Straw when he was Foreign Minister and the Bush/Blair axis. He famously said that an attack on Iran would be “inconceivable” and “completely nuts”. Those remarks ended his tenure at the Foreign Office, possibly on the instructions of the Bush administration. Could Margaret Beckett, who voted strongly for the Iraq War, be about to make a similar mistake?

Tony Blair is publicly highly supportive of Israel and has declined to call for an immediate ceasefire. But some in the Foreign Office are now privately urging greater restraint by Israel amid concern that the scale of the bombardment is counter-productive, disproportionate, and undermining the political stability of the Lebanese government.

Margaret Beckett, who only became foreign secretary three months ago, is trying to straddle the divide between Downing Street and her department. But she refused to bow to intense Labour backbench pressure yesterday in the Commons either to call for an unconditional ceasefire or condemn the Israeli action as disproportionate.
Source

As the crisis escalates, Blair’s justification for the genocide will be harder to maintain, but Iraq has shown us that he has as much concern for international law as he does for the suffering of innocent people. A new UN resolution is being prepared after the vetoing of the last one a few days ago and that is likely to be vetoed too if it criticises Israel in any way for its disproportionate response. At some point however, the death toll will be high enough to provoke a louder international outcry than we have heard so far, especially if, as Israel desires, Syria and Iran are drawn into the conflict, which a land invasion of Lebanon may well do.

Blair and Beckett are soon going to be presented with a difficult choice, to support yet another regional war that could easily turn into something even more catastrophic than the current crisis, or to pull back from the brink and work for peace earning the displeasure of the United States and Israel. Beckett will be sacrificed if necessary, but Blair’s support has all but evaporated amongst the electorate and is own party. He wants to stay in power for another year despite the cash for honours scandal and the police investigation getting closer to him. His pro Israel Middle East envoy and party fundraiser has already been arrested and is facing more questioning. Will Blair gamble that he can stay on in with another war exploding around him (even though the British military is too overstretched to be involved at this point), or just leave with an impossible mess for his successor to deal with?

Tags: Bush, Bliar, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon

Cash for Honours investigation picks up pace

2006-07-14T09:17:00.000+01:00

Image by Beau Bo D'Or

Since the arrest of Lord Levy, which he angrily described as theatrical, the police investigation seems to have gained momentum. Lord Levy has returned to the police station to answer more questions, and Lord Sainsbury, the Science Minister and biggest Labour donor has become the first Government minister to be interviewed by the police, and news is coming through that ex party chairman Ian McCartney has also been quizzed.

Despite the, frankly, bizarre criticisms of the police being theatrical and heavy-handed (this after the botched Forest Gate raid and the execution of Jean Charles De Menezes) the police do seem to think they have a case and are saying that they are confident charges will be brought.

Scotland Yard indicated to MPs yesterday that it was well on its way to securing enough evidence for a prosecution in the cash for peerages inquiry, even though three of Labour's big lenders had so far refused to talk to the police.

John Yates, the officer in charge of the investigation, disclosed that he had submitted two files to the Crown Prosecution Service and expected to hand over a full report by the autumn.
Source

And it could be that rather than just being charges of selling honours or failing to disclose information, there could also be more serious charges of conspiracy.

The likelihood of prosecutions being brought in the cash for honours inquiry was raised yesterday when the detective in charge of the investigation revealed that his team was looking into whether conspiracy charges could be brought against potential suspects.
Source

Tony Blair’s appointment with Knacker of the Yard is getting closer now too. It is believed he will be interviewed this summer, after his holiday and before the Party conference in September.

TONY BLAIR will fly off on his summer holiday knowing that on his return he will be the first serving British prime minister to be interviewed by police in a corruption investigation.
Source

So it looks like Blair’s legacy and place in history (which he is so obsessed with) is assured. As the pressure mounts the remaining donors whose loans were blocked will start spilling the beans. No one is saying that the Prime Minister is going to be arrested, but the media is starting to speculate about the possibility. Fingers crossed.

Tags: Cash for Honours, Sleaze, Blair, New Labour

Sleazy Levy has been nicked

2006-07-12T19:28:00.000+01:00

Just as Guido Fawkes predicted back in March (and several times since), Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser and Middle-East envoy, Lord ~~Cashpoint~~ Levy, has been arrested for his involvement with the ‘cash for honours’ scandal. He has not yet been charged with an offence and has been bailed.

Lord Levy, 61, denies any wrongdoing and accused the police of using their arrest powers "totally unnecessarily".

[…]

Asked if he had any reaction to the news of Lord Levy's arrest, the prime minister's official spokesman said: "I cannot comment on that, it is a party matter."

He confirmed the peer was still the prime minister's Middle East envoy.

[…]

Lord Levy's arrest comes two days after allegations that he told a businessman he did not have to tell a Lords vetting committee about his loan to the party.

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson says Lord Levy and Tony Blair are close friends and said the fate of Lord Levy and Mr Blair was "intertwined".

"This could not be more serious for Tony Blair personally," he said.
Source

So it would seem that Sir Gulam Noon has been singing like a canary now that there is little chance of him or his fellow donors getting their peerages. It seems that there are fears that the police have been recovering incriminating emails from computers which could lead to more arrests.

Iain Dale has been on the case here, and here.

Let’s see if Blair’s preference for "speedy, simple summary justice" still holds as the investigation gets closer to him. I wonder if Lord Sleazy will do a Dame Shirley Porter and disappear to Israel.

*UPDATE*
Guido has helpfully put all his posts on the Levy saga into one chronologically ordered post in order to assist those journalists expressing surpirse at Sleazy's arrest. For those playing catch-up its well worth a read.

Tags: Sleaze, UK Politics, Blair

Has Lord Levy been burning the evidence?

2006-04-21T18:11:00.000+01:00

Guido Fawkes suspects something fishy is going on with regard to a mysterious fire at the offices of Lord Levy last November. The news comes fom an article by Peter Osborne in The Spectator.

Secondly, it emerges that the Marylebone offices of the New Labour treasurer, Lord Levy, have been devastated by a mysterious fire. This took place last November, well before the police investigation began and around the time the House of Lords Appointments Commission raised the first queries concerning Tony Blair’s list. When I rang Downing Street for a reassurance that no papers relevant to the police investigation had been destroyed, I was informed that ‘that is a matter for Lord Levy’.

Full Article here (free subscription required)

This is old news, the fire happening as it did in November, but with the cash for honours scandal continuing, the story becomes more interesting. There is more on the fire here.

"One room, used by his secretary, was devastated.
We do not know the cause of the fire but we are not treating it as suspicious."

Many of Levy's personal documents were destroyed but happily, I am told, his correspondence with the PM and other political mementoes remain intact in his offices the Lords and the Foreign Office. The police are investigating.

Well this looks a bit suspicious to me too. Maybe he couldn't find a paper shredder big enough.

Tags: Blair, Britain, Cash for Honours

Round-up of the Loans for Honours Scandal

2006-04-19T00:20:00.000+01:00

There have been some interesting developments in the on-going investigation into the loans for honours scandal. Last week head teacher and ex-Government advisor to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), the quango set up to find rich donors for the government’s City Academies programme, Des Smith, was arrested. In January this year he had revealed to an undercover Sunday Times reporter the extent of the tariff system in which the more money one gave, the better the gong given for "services to education", from OBEs to knighthoods to peerages. Des Smith has denied any wrong doing and is promising to defend himself vigorously.

Tony Blair's close friend and ex-flat mate Lord Falconer is shortly to appear before MPs to answer questions over the cash for honours system and the damage it is doing to British politics. The Lord Chancellor will be the first witness in the inquiry into the future of party funding. He is also likely to play a part in any reforms that are to be made into the honours system.
There was another very interesting development when another recruiter of rich donors to the Labour Party, Dr Nick Bowes, Head of Labour's Business Liaison Unit, accidentally set his private blog (published anonymously as "Tales of the Northern Monkey'') to be public and revealed many more murky details in the cash for honours scandal and in the blog said that the "Prime Minister was in it up to his neck, and was personally involved." He also said:

"The whole peerages thing is corrupt. It is one of the biggest forms of patronage still in the hands of the Prime Minister. I just wonder whether the PM really believes in sorting out the House of Lords, as it may just rob him of his one first-class way of rewarding big donors and sponsors of city academies."

Of course the blog has been taken off-line now but conservative blogger, Iain Dale, has a copy of it and a very interesting read it is too. Blairwatch has more on this.

Clearly No 10 were running a party within a party - Blair, Lord levy, Matt Carter (General Secretary) and Ian McCartney were all complicit in the scam, and I knew absolutely nothing about the loans.

Iain Dale also has a list of very pertinent questions on his blog which are worth looking at.

"It seems to me that Mr Bowes could have some very useful information for Inspector John Yates of the Metropolitan Police."

Its looking like Inspector John Yates is going to be a very busy man as his investigation delves deeper and deeper into the scandal and his list of people to interview gets longer.

Dr Nick Bowes in one section of his diary says in reference to the drawing up of the list of donors to receive honours that Lord Levy was responsible:

"It's got the grimy hands of Lord Levy all over it... most on the list have given substantial money to New Labour. Some of the elevations I think would be quite good... unlike fly-by-nights like Sir Gulam Noon - who frankly is the supporter of whomever is in Government and therefore most likely to make him a lord - and Barry Townsley, who I have always suspected of being a Tory."

Inspector Yates is very likely to want to ask Lord Levy a few questions. He is Labour's chief fundraier known in the party and among journalists as Lord Cashpoint. He is believed to be most closely linked to the current sleaze scandal and was also responsible for securing the £1m donation to Labour from Formula One millionaire Bernie Ecclestone. Lord Levy is now saying that he will not be the fall guy for Tony Blair and that the loans for peerages scam was all the Prime Minister's idea as the pressure builds on him and on others to come clean.

Sources close to Lord Levy said he would tell police that he was against getting wealthy backers to offer secret loans instead of publicly declared donations - but was urged to do so by Mr Blair to save the party from bankruptcy.
Full Article

But whatever he says, it does seem that he is very involved in the scandal. And the scandal may even go deeper than just handing out gongs for cash. Lord Levy is also deeply involved in Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a powerful lobby group for Israeli interests in the UK. From Sourcewatch and Spinwatch:

While Labour originally carried a reputation for having more voices sympathetic to the Palestinians – especially during the Thatcher years – the New Labour government of Tony Blair has reversed this orientation. Although one of Tony Blair’s first acts after becoming an MP in 1983 was joining LFI, the relationship truly developed in the early 90s, when as shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair met Michael Levy at a private meeting at the latter’s house. Michael Abraham Levy is a former chairman of the Jewish Care Community Foundation, a member of the Jewish Agency World Board of Governors, and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust. According to Andrew Porter of The Business, Levy expressed his willingness “to raise large sums of money for the party” which led to a “tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel” .

In other words in return for large amounts of cash, Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, changed his foreign policy to favour a foreign government. It is also no coincidence that Michael Levy was made a Lord when Blair came to power and also a "special envoy" to the Middle-East. This is a serious conflict of interest and goes much further than the necessary task of combating anti-Semitism in the UK.

The partnership proceeded as Levy started inviting potential donors for tennis at his palatial home where Tony Blair would join them for a set or two. Levy would then proceed to ask the guests for donations after Blair had left. The genius of Levy’s fundraising strategy ensured that most of Labour's election funds came from private sources, rather than its traditional source – the trade unions, thereby weakening their say over policy. Levy’s investment eventually paid off, with Blair’s accession to power. The reward was not long in coming as Levy was ennobled and subsequently retained as a “special envoy” to the Middle-East, leading predictably to the development of a strong pro-Israel line. Given the fact that Levy has both a business and a house in Israel and his son Daniel used to work for Yossi Beilin – the former Justice Minister of Israel – speaks of a serious conflict of interest, especially when he is the man assigned by Blair to negotiate impartially with Palestinians and Israelis. The fact that Levy acted as a fundraiser for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak casts further doubt on his capacity for impartiality. According to Neil Sammonds of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in 2002, Four of the previous five ministers with Responsibility for the Middle East had been active members of LFI.

Hopefully these issues will be investigated but somehow I doubt it. Tony Blair has been very lucky in his Premiership, with no opposition to speak of and a large majority for most of his tenure. He has been able to force through bad legislation with little scrutiny and select his own judges when investigated leading to inevitable whitewashes and "narrowing the scope of the investigation". He has also been fairly successful in limiting the power of the House of Lords to challenge his centralising of power. But after giving so much power to the police, maybe Inspector Yates' investigation will be thorough enough to find the needed evidence. Perhaps Blair's greed will be his undoing.

Tags: Blair, Britain, Cash for Honours

New Labour Sleaze Spreads

2006-03-26T05:25:00.000+01:00

New Labour’s loans scandal shows no signs of diminishing. It is now known that Tony Blair knew about the loans before picking the lenders out for peerages despite having been warned by the Appointments Commission after the election.

The prime minister selected Chai Patel, Sir David Garrard, Barry Townsley and Sir Gulam Noon from a list of more than 40 candidates drawn up by aides last summer.

The disclosure shows for the first time Blair’s hands-on role in the loans for honours scandal. He is thought to be the only person involved in choosing nominees who was aware of the identities of the financial supporters.

He had previously accepted responsibility only for a loans scheme without admitting he was fully informed of who the lenders were. However, the insider said: “When Blair selected his shortlist of peers he was aware of which ones had given loans. He was given a long list of names to choose from and personally selected which ones to put forward. The prime minister knew exactly what was going on with the loans from the very beginning.”

Full Story

The same article states that Lord Levy’s friends are saying that he was against the loan scheme and that it was “all Tony’s idea”.

The corruption scandal has now engulfed John Prescott, the deputy prime minister as it has been revealed that he favoured plans from property developers who had also given secret loans to the party.

The deputy prime minister gave his backing to a controversial £600m scheme proposed by Andrew Rosenfeld, chairman of the Minerva property company, only months after Rosenfeld had secretly loaned Labour £1m last year.

Full Story

Meanwhile more questions are being asked about Rod Aldridge and Capita, and its relationship with the Government. Stewart Jackson, the MP for Peterborough has asked the Prime Minister to "List meetings his Adviser on Government Relations has had with (a) Capita, (b) organisations acting on behalf of Capita and (c) Mr Rod Aldridge in the last 18 months; what the purpose of the meeting was in each case; and if he will make a statement."

Jackson said: "I asked that question because I am concerned if civil servants were being instructed to procure money for the Labour Party in their office time and using their office resources. If that's true, it is political dynamite."

Full Story

The civil servant who advises on government relations is Ruth Turner.

The police investigation into the affair looks like it may well be a thorough one. John Yates has already selected his team and asked for sensitive documents and Lord Levy seems to be an early target of the investigation.

The pressure is also increasing on the Tory Party to disclose the people who loaned them money, and it is possible the police investigation will spread to them too. In order to deflect attention from the Labour Party, Downing Street has been accusing the Tories of “buying seats” at the last election. It also appears that foriegn-born businessmen have been bankrolling the Tory Party.

It looks like these sleaze allegations will continue for some time yet, and will more than likely instigate some real change in the way political parties are funded. The close examination of the two biggest parties will also demonstrate how close together they are in terms of sleaze as well as policy.

Tags: Blair Sleaze Politics