What's £2.4 million between friends?

Tee hee, ElComm is going to "re-open its investigation" into the £2.4 million donation that the Lib Dems received from an ineligible donor.

Which begs the question, why did they close the investigation in the first place? What appears to have triggered this is that the man behind the company that made the ineligible donation has been convicted of fraud. That is neither here nor there. As the article explains, PPERA "forbid[s] political parties from accepting corporate donations unless the companies are actually carrying on business [in the UK]."

Nick Clegg moans that "We took that money in good faith, everybody recognises. It has been recognised that we did all the due diligence checks we could have done, totally unaware of the crimes of which Michael Brown has now been indicted. Beyond that I can't comment."

What a twat!

1. What due diligence? A quick search at Companies House shows the company was incorporated on 15 March 2004 and has never filed any accounts whatsoever. Fair enough, the Lib Dems took the money to fund their 2005 general election campaign, so at the time they accepted it, the company's first set of accounts weren't overdue, but crikey. I wonder what "due diligence" they did? When proper accountants and lawyers do 'due diligence' they generate files and files of paper with copies of tax returns, invoices, business plans, trading history etc etc.

2. Michael Brown hasn't just been "indicted", has he? That's a fancy way of saying "charged", he's been "convicted", FFS. In any event, as mentioned above, whether he is a fraudster or not, and whether they were aware of it or not is neither here nor.

Anyway, a quick glance at the Lib Dems' 2007 accounts shows that this would push the federal party into a £1.3 million deficit. Looking on the bright side, from their point of view, they'd only need £20 from each of their 65,400 members to become solvent again. Plus a heck of a lot more to fight next year's EU Parliament elections.

Harriet Harman was let off the hook for similar skullduggery, of course, although there's still hope that Peter Hain will be forced to forfeit upwards of £100,000, I suppose.