Quote Originally Posted by Simon Appleton
(..) it's pretty tame stuff compared to the personalised graft and pork-barrel politics you see in many other countries.
What about Labour peer Paul Drayson and the £32m Powderject contract he was given without tendering shortly after he donated £100,000 to Labour? The Indian steel billionaire Mr Mittal who donated £125,000 to Labour prior to receiving Mr Blair's backing for his takeover of the Romanian Sidex steel plant? Ex-minister Geoffrey Robinson misleading Parliament about a £200,000 payment from Robert Maxwell? A sum that may have been used toward the undeclared loan he gave Mr Mandelson, which led to Mr Mandelson's first resignation? Alright, British politicians are not in the Mugabe/Suharto league, but the appropriate words would still be bribery and influence-peddling, not 'tame stuff'.