A couple of interesting twists to the 'concealed donations' story over the last 24 hours:
- this morning on Radio 4 there was a report of allegations that not only did multiple Labour Party staff members know about the donations, but that they conspired in order to come up with the mechanism through which those payments could be made without revealing Mr Abrahams' identity... i.e. that he should give cheques to people in his immediate business circle, such as his solicitor and his secretary. Blimey. If that's the most devious plan they can come up with through "conspiracy", the smart money must surely be gravitating towards "cock-up".
- yesterday, it emerged that Mr Abrahams is unlikely to get his money back, despite Gordon Brown's initial statement on Nov 27th that the cash would be repaid. Apparently there's a 30-day limit, and once that has elapsed donations are not repaid to the donor, but must go instead into the Treasury's "Consolidated Fund". Which is nice for them.
At any rate, it seems pretty clear that the Labour Party shouldn't get the money; and until it's clear whether there's a link between the donations and any alleged form of political advantage - such as the granting of planning consent for his construction projects - neither should Mr Abrahams. That said, it would be nice if there was some transparency over where it ends up going from the Consolidated Fund. It seems there are only four legally permissible recipients of payments from the Fund: the government Paymaster General, the Commissioners of the National Debt, the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, and the Commissioners of HM Revenue and Customs (the HMRC...).
I wonder if the latter would believe it if they were told their cheque was in the post.
![[RSS Newsfeed]](/themes/sotto/images/valid-rss.png)
![[This is a Roller site]](/themes/sotto/images/roller-logo.gif){kind=logo}