I had a quick read of the front page of The Journal, our regional morning newspaper, before leaving the house this morning to catch the train to London. "Leave me alone" screamed the headline. And the poor victim of needless hassle from the world was...David Abrahams, not so secret donor to the Labour party and the person who kick started the Donorgate scandal.
One of the proxies who was used to transfer the cash into Labour's coffers was a constituent of mine up til 4 years ago when boundary changes transferred her estate from my ward.
Mr Abrahams is complaining about receiving begging letters from all sorts of charities, people and organisations. He is fed up with it all. Ahhhhhhh, poor thing. I don't know why these people have bothered Mr Abrahams. After all, he has demonstrated his donations are destined for an organisation many of us would find hard to describe as a good cause.
Mr Abrahams then went on to blame the government for the Donorgate scandal. All this could have been avoided had a "booklet" been produced to explain what to do and not do when handing over a sum of money to Labour that many people would not earn in a lifetime.
Whether or not such a booklet would have helped Labour's top financial bod to keep within the donation rules is another matter given he knew they were proxy donations but had been trained on the rules.
It seems as though Labour has an arrogant disregard for the rules. Rules, they believe, are for Labour to bring in and others to obey. Alan Johnson's donation story which broke over the weekend is likely not to turn out to be a story of his wrongdoing and my presumption is that he is innocent of any wrongdoing. But the Hain affair is not in the least bit innocent, the Harriet Harman donation is questionable and the Wendy Alexander donation is decidedly dodgy.
It seems all is not coming up roses in Incapability Brown's political garden.
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2 comments:
The funny thing about Abrahams is that some of Labour's top brass (Sir Jeremy Beecham for one) in the region rubbished him as an "eccentric" when the scandal first broke, but then it was revealed he had sat on the regional executive of the party and was described as a "well-known" face in Labour party circles with close links to Sedgefield.
The question remains: who funded Phil Wilson's victorious by-election campaign in Sedgefield in July last year?
Answer on a postcard to the Durham Constabulary.
BNP Accounts go under the BBC microscope
Radio4
20:00
File on 4
12 February 2008
The major political parties' fundraising methods have all come under close scrutiny recently, but concerns are now being expressed over the finances of the British National Party. Fran Abrams investigates.
This programme promises to be a treat with a star studded BNP and ex BNP line-up.
We hear that the 'Civil Liberty' connection to the BNP, and its finances, are also being discussed.
All things being equal, it's about time the BNP's accounts received the same coverage as all the other parties.
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