One of these two women accepted dodgy donations for her Deputy Leadership campaign*; the other had her £350,000 mortgage paid off by a mystery benefactor.
The husband of one them was Party Treasurer, who knew nothing about loans-for-peerages, who omitted £25 million in soft loans from his party's accounts, and f*** me, forgot all about a £40,000 mortgage he took out to fund said wife's Deputy Leadership campaign. The estranged husband of the other "has never been bribed by Mr Berlusconi or by anyone on his behalf".
Without following the links (or hovering over the pictures) can anybody remember which one is which?
Clue: apparently one of them shone at PMQs recently.
* The article says that she said she'd return it. Well, firstly, under PPERA, you can't return it, it has to be forfeited to El Comm. And as it happens I bet she did neither.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Spot the difference
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6 comments:
I had to cheat. The best thing about the one who had her mortgage paid off was a cartoon I saw in the week. She is sitting in bed with her husband, saying 'oh, look darling. The tooth fairy has been and left us £350,000'
The article says that she said she'd return it. Well, firstly, under PPERA, you can't return it, it has to be forfeited to El Comm. And as it happens I bet she did neither.
There's scope for an FOI Act request and a letter to a Tory MP in there soemwhere, I'm sure.
It's not clear to me that Harriet does have to repay under PPERA - in her case it was Abraham's agent who broke PPERA by not informing Harriet who the real donor was. I'm not sure if s58 "Forfeiture" applies in such a case (especially as both Abrahams and agent were permissable donors). Anyway forfeiture only comes into effect after ElComm applies to a court.
Exactly. El Comm only apply if a non-Big Three Party does something a bit off piste.
Not sure you are being fair in this case. Harriet did not break PPERA in this case. ElComm would probably have to mount a successful prosecution against Abraham's alleged agent to establish the facts of deceit before it could apply to to the courts for forfeiture of the money Harriet received (as the alleged agent was a permissable donor). And from the wording of s58 "Forfeiture" I'm not at all sure it would apply here anyway as they wer both permissable donors.
Harriet's voluntary offer to return the money seems the decent and easiest solution in this tricky legal situation.
I would agree that PPERA needs a major revision in the light of experience! It sounds OK from a read through, but the murky details of party funding in reality seem to have shown its cracks!
I re-read PPERA, all the sections on permissible donors seem to apply to donations to The Party rather than to individuals running a personal campaign. Had it been a donation to The Party, then El Comm would indeed have grounds to apply for forfeiture (not that they ever do in the case of a Big Three Party). So that's a dead end.
The real question is, did she make good on her promise to return it? Without, of course, there being a prior agreement for Abrahams to promptly re-donate it?
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