The Times reported on 8th December that the Labour Party really has no excuse for their many officials and senior parliamentarians who claimed not to know that proxy political gifts are illegal.
In April 2001 the Labour Party received the first tranche of a £180,000 grant from the Electoral Commision, - the remainder arrived in 2002. (All parties received grants - the Conservatives the same total, the Libdems £137,00, right down to £500 for the communists.) The grant could be used to hire consultants for advice, to communicate with party workers, train or to convert computer systems, etc., to ensure compliance with the 2000 Elections and Referendums Act.
The 2000 act was the one which required the clear identification of political donors, submitting accounts and declaring gifts above £5,000, among other requirements!
It seems that the first of 19 disguised gifts from David Abrahams took place just a few months later, when in January 2003 Janet Dunn, the wife of an Abrahams business associate, "gave" £25,000.
Martin Bell the anti-sleaze campaigner told the Times newspaper, "The more we know, the worse it gets. It makes you wonder what this money was spent on."
Certainly, Peter Watt, who quit as Labour general secretary over the whole affair, worked for the Party when the Act was introduced and was task-force leader for financial and legal compliance from 2003, as well as director of finance and compliance from 2005 until becoming secretary in 2006. If anyone knew the legal requirements, he should have done. Yet on his resignation he claimed to have taken legal advice and been reassured that he had met all reporting obligations, until eventually he found that there were additional reporting requirements.
There seems to have been complete ignorance of Section 54 of the act, requiring the names of both proxy giver and original giver, even among those who had accepted the responsibility for ensuring compliance with the act.
Martin Bell had justification for asking what the grant was spent on.
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2 comments:
They've squandered it on something else - clearky their education and training programme didn't work, if they forgot within months.
Or are they just corrupt and dishonest?
How can so many people be so ignorant of the laws THEY passed a year or two before, and when they have spent so much public money in being trained to remember and understand it?
I'm afraid they are completely cynical. They thought that they could get away with it, and now they've come unstuck. "Not me, gov, I didn't know anything, I'm stupid!"
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