27 November 2007

Where Is Labour's Money Coming From?

Nick Robinson, of BBC News, gets to the heart of why Labour accepted donations, through third parties, from David Abrahams. They simply didn't ask MPs from the North-East. Labour is desperate for donations, and they don't seem to be doing due diligence on where it's coming from.

Asked, "have you heard of Ray Ruddick?" they would have replied, "never heard of him - why, who is he?". Had the reply been anything like, "he's given us over £100k in the past few weeks and he lives on your patch - he says his address is Blakelaw..." the response would have been hysterical laughter. Blakelaw is, one angry Labour MP suggested to me, a well-known estate on which, "the only way anyone there would have that sort of money is if they were very lucky or they were drug dealers".

If the conversation had become more candid - for example, "actually the money's really coming from a bloke called David Abrahams," the reply would have been, "don't touch it with a bargepole". Mr Abrahams is - let's put it this way - a "controversial figure" who's used different names, different ages, been deselected as a parliamentary candidate and has been involved in rows about the planning system.
Harriet Harman has been drawn into this, by accepting £2000 from Abrahams, through Janet Kidd, for her deputy leadership campaign. Interestingly, a rival, Hilary Benn, turned down a similar donation for his campaign after he became aware that the donation had been channeled through a third party.

Gordon Brown has been in charge for the last four months, when £220 000 of Abrahams' money has come into the party:

Brown did, however, admit to reporters that he had met Abrahams, a wealthy property tycoon who was briefly a Labour parliamentary candidate, in the past but said he could not remember ever discussing the issue of donations.

"I am sure I may have met him but I have no recollection of any conversations about any of these issues," he said. "I had no knowledge until Saturday night, either of the donations or of the practice which had grown up where they were improperly declared to the Electoral Commission. No knowledge at all."

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