Sunday, February 22, 2009
Watchdog to probe peer’s donations to Tories
The Election Commission will scrutinise multi-million pound donations made by Bearwood Corporate Services, a Berkshire-based company associated with Lord Ashcroft, who is also the Conservative deputy party chairman.
Donations by Bearwood to the party since David Cameron took over the leadership in 2005 have totalled more than £3m ($4m), including donations in kind, making it the party’s biggest corporate donor.
Labour MPs have long questioned whether the donations complied with strict laws banning overseas donations. Allegedly Lord Ashcroft is not just the Conservative party’s biggest donor but sits in Central Office running their election campaign.
IMO: Probably these donations are illegal under UK law but it will be interesting to know if that can be proved. International corruption rules are very gradually getting more stringent. I would be extremely surprised if there are not many more fraudulent involvements in Tory funds. I think Fawkes noted some other Tory matters recently. Compared to this lot the Smith Institute is probably ... well ...'Clean as W.H. Smiths' to use the Soho racketeers phrase.
The Election Commission will scrutinise multi-million pound donations made by Bearwood Corporate Services, a Berkshire-based company associated with Lord Ashcroft, who is also the Conservative deputy party chairman.
Donations by Bearwood to the party since David Cameron took over the leadership in 2005 have totalled more than £3m ($4m), including donations in kind, making it the party’s biggest corporate donor.
Labour MPs have long questioned whether the donations complied with strict laws banning overseas donations. Allegedly Lord Ashcroft is not just the Conservative party’s biggest donor but sits in Central Office running their election campaign.
IMO: Probably these donations are illegal under UK law but it will be interesting to know if that can be proved. International corruption rules are very gradually getting more stringent. I would be extremely surprised if there are not many more fraudulent involvements in Tory funds. I think Fawkes noted some other Tory matters recently. Compared to this lot the Smith Institute is probably ... well ...'Clean as W.H. Smiths' to use the Soho racketeers phrase.
# posted by uv : 11:25 PM
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