Fancy being a Knight of the Realm?

[InsaneApache]

You do! Then all you have to do is loan some money to Tony Blair. Easy Peasy, lemon sqeezy.

A MILLIONAIRE businessman has lifted the lid on how Labour is concealing money given by wealthy backers who are then nominated for peerages.

Labour has raised up to £10m from donors but has hidden the payments because they were made as loans, which do not have to be declared. Three of the donors were put forward for peerages by Tony Blair last autumn.

click

He doesn't even bother trying to hide it anymore.

[Duke Malcolm]

It's hard to hide after the likes of Lord Drayson. Over £1,000,000 for the title and the post of Minister of Defence Procurement...

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

*waiting for Labour apologists*

[InsaneApache]

And again.

SITTING in a glass-fronted office in the headquarters of his health company last week, a visibly upset Dr Chai Patel finally decided to “break ranks”.

He was ready to talk about his nomination for a seat in the House of Lords — and the money he gave to the Labour party, which proposed him.

“I’ve broken the dam,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

and

He says he has been subjected to a campaign of innuendo and suspicion. He has been investigated by the Appointments Commission, which vets nominations for peerages, without the chance to hear any allegations against his character or to speak in his defence.

Looks like he upset Blair then.

link

EDIT: for link

[Louis VI the Fat]

Patel, 51, who would traditionally observe the protocol of silence of nominated peers, has spoken out because he believes transparency is now essential for a system that is so badly flawed.

He says he has been subjected to a campaign of innuendo and suspicion. He has been investigated by the Appointments Commission, which vets nominations for peerages, without the chance to hear any allegations against his character or to speak in his defence.

He has not even been told the verdict but the commission, which considers “propriety of character”, has apparently concluded that he is unsuitable to sit in the Lords.

He now wishes he had disclosed all his financial links with Labour when it first emerged that he had been nominated.

I'm sure he does feel regret - the kind of regret a burlar feels when he get's caught.

There will be suspicion that Patel loaned the party £1.5m last summer in the hope of an honour, but he vehemently denies this: “Absolutely not. If they had said ‘you will get this, by signing this’ I would have walked out of the room.” .

Patel says that when he was approached about the loan he did not know there was the possibility of receiving a peerage.

Yeah, right.

So Patel says that
- he made a loan without any expection of recieving a peerage.
- In his own words, he did not even know of the possibility of receiving a peerage in this fashion.
- Nor did he receive any peerage for his loan.

So what is he going on about in the first place then?


Or should we believe Patel II? :

That he, 'visibly upset', and with only the public interest in mind, has finally decided to “break ranks" and reveal all about Labour's 'honours for loans'?

Well I'd be 'visibly upset' too if my £1.5m loan and £100.000 contribution didn't get me my peerage in the end. But unlike mr. Patel, I would realise I would be the last person in Britain with any moral right to complain. Maybe the system is corrupt, maybe it isn't. In any case, Patel tried to make the corrution work for him, failed in that, and now Reveals All!! about that very corruption. The man makes me want to vomit all over my keyboard.

[InsaneApache]

LOl me too Louis.

It's about time this patronage was halted.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Yes, this patronage system is unbearable. Despite my criticism of mr. Patel, I do hope this will have some repercusions for Bliar and Labour.

Blair has been the biggest dispenser of political patronage in the Lords since life peerages were created in 1958.

Despite their being nominated by Blair, the Appointments Commission, an independent body which vets potential peerages, has refused to ratify the honours for Patel, Garrard and Townsley. It has declined to give its reasons.

The disclosures will provoke calls for another shake-up of the honours system.

[Strike For The South]

I want land and peasants how much will 17$ and 53 cents get me. A nice cottage home in plymouth?

[Big_John]

this thread is such a tease.. i want to be a knight in full armor and i want to chop heads off with my greatsword.

[InsaneApache]

You might get a back-to-back in Huddersfield.

[mystic brew]

government gives financial backers rewards... I hope you'll see my complete lack of shock.

I'm no fan of Blairs, but i don't see how this lot are any different to the governments of the past 100 years.

[InsaneApache]

Except that life peers were only created 50 years ago.

[rory_20_uk]

Call me out of date, but I think KBEs and OBEs should be there for doing something exceptional.

Being a senior Civil Servant does NOT count.
Nor does running a care home, fostering kids, helping after a bombing etc etc. Doing exceptionally well at sport may just about qualify.

If you really want these things to be remembered make some civic award that they can receive.

I'd make the list again somewhat more traditional in that the PM presents the list to the Monarch who then decides who they want, and can add to it as well.

[mystic brew]

:p

and how did the hereditary peers originally get their seats? patronage?

[rory_20_uk]

Slaughter was another good one of course. Nothing beats mass murder to make one a hero to the side that you're on.

Most things we have can be regressed to their venial roots, but then one has to make the choice: reform them or scrap them.

[Papewaio]

So you can buy yourself a peerage and get to vote on what happens in the land?

So when is USA going to invade to put democracy in place in the UK?

[master of the puppets]

So you can buy yourself a peerage and get to vote on what happens in the land?

So when is USA going to invade to put democracy in place in the UK?

soon as i'm president.

[Soulforged]

Can I get my knighthood being an stranger?

[Slyspy]

Oh yes, just send a load of cash to 10 Downing Street.

I just wish politicians could understand that just because it is not against the rules it doesn't mean it is ethical practice.

[Ja'chyra]

As soon as I saw this on the news I thought two things.

1. Backroom
2. InsaneApache



I agree though, the whole thing is just wrong, and I'm not buying the "I didn't know" line either. The whole system needs a shake up along with all the other honours (that's right, with a "U"). Seems to me that you can get a MBE for helping old people across the road, and don't get me started about getting knighted just for making £20 mill per film.

And another thing, where's JAG

[InsaneApache]

hehe....I don't know who I'm gonna rant about when Tonys' shuffled off!

and leave JAG alone (my new buddy ) he's chasing tail and getting hammered like all young men of his age do when they first fly the nest.

[SwordsMaster]

Hey, and why not?

I mean, knighthood is based on contribution to the country. Technically, the PM rules the country, therefore it is quite reasonable that the contributions to his party get a favourable response for knighthood.

[Idaho]

This process has been endemic to politics since the advent of professional politicians. If you have enough money, you can get access to the positions of power and skirt the need for any irksome scuffle with democratic processes.

[InsaneApache]

Interesting article from Nick Robinson of the BBC.

The whiff that won't go away

* Nick
* 13 Mar 06, 09:44AM

There are times when you hear something and the hairs on the back of your neck go up. Some words in politics have that effect. The word in question today is "sleaze".

Overused, unspecific, designed to damage rather than illuminate, "sleaze" is still a word that is mightily hard to shake off once it attaches itself to you. Over the past few days I've heard the high-minded editor of the sobre Financial Times use it; I've seen the former editor of the Guardian write it and seen the Daily Mail shout it from the rooftops.

What, you may protest, surely Labour has done "nothing wrong" (to use the party press office's favourite phrase)?

Well, no - provided, that is, you believe

* Tessa Jowell's protestations of ignorance of her husband's financial transactions;
* provided you accept that taking million pound loans from very rich people was not a ruse to get around party funding rules;
* provided you think there's nothing questionable about every person who gave the party a million getting a peerage or a knighthood;

then they have, indeed, done nothing wrong.

What's more they can boast that they created the laws on party funding and the Electoral Commission that are now being used to embarrass them.

No matter.

"Sleaze" doesn't depend on facts or track record. It's a smell, a feeling, a cloud that can form around a political party. Once it's there your enemies will use anything they can to increase the size of the cloud - John Reid's mortgage, Cherie Blair's speaking fees and anything to do with Tessa Jowell.

If the warning lights are not flashing red in Downing Street they should be.

link

[Russiantsar]

I don't believe I have a million Euros though

[InsaneApache]

Sorry, Euros just don't cut the mustard. They are illegal tender in the UK. It has to be pounds sterling.