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Jock Coats — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 20:07:34 +0000

Weelll...maybe.

But to be fair, we already know the likes of Wheeler made his money on ill-gotten gains (gambling) and it doesn't really faze me.

If you get your money in the city, someday someone can likely make something stick if they've got something against you.

My outrage was all spent when they accepted the donation in the first place!

And I actually now have some sympathy for the guy. Rich bloke rips off richer bloke - big deal! If he hadn't had the misfortune of getting involved in something as murky as politics his current elleged misdemeanour might make it to a foot note in the FT for city types to chuckle at rather than the front pages and headline news.

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Iain Dale — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:47:37 +0000

methinks you do protest just that little too much Jock. If you really can't see this is a story I am very surprised. I suspect you would do if it was a Tory donor in the firing line. Hey ho. By the way, if you'd like to exchange blog links, let me know.

I just can't get excited about Michael Brown

Jock — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 01:58:58 +0000

Iain Dale and "Yellow Peril" variously "broke" a "news" story yesterday about a chap being arrested in Spain apparently over some kind of spat over a business deal gone wrong. From what we can understand so far, it appears that his bankers decided to pull the plug after some dealings with another rich bloke that once had something to do with a famous football club that the guy had tried to cover up or some such when they tried to sue him or something.

Great. So? Well of course the political bubble down in London is all abuzz with it now, because the person concerned, one Michael Brown, of uncertain abode it seems, donated a lot of money, by party standards, to the Lib Dems last year. A donation that drew some attention, most notably in the Times, owned by a man who thinks he owns most of the world's politicians anyway, because it was unclear whether it was a permissable UK based donation. You can read Iain Dale getting all excited about it here:

Iain Dale's Diary: EXCLUSIVE: LibDem Donor Faces Fraud Charges:

So, I just want to say that I cannot get terribly excited about this.

First - it was well known within the party at least, if not at the time, then shortly after the donation was made public (the first most of us wee foot soldiers knew of it), that Mr Brown had made his fortune in property speculation in Florida in double quick time and was on a wanted list for one or more rubber cheques he had written while apparently dirt poor at the start of his meteoric rise. No doubt he had pissed off some counterparty in his property deals at some point. If nobody ever accepted money from anyone who had ever issued a cheque their account could not cover, especially when they were hard up, I suspect there would be precious few donations ever made to anyone, political or otherwise. But Americans are more anal about this sort of thing anyway, so on a wanted list he remains.

Second, and probably most importantly for me, I was personally pissed off that the party had accepted any such donation in the first place - I mean size wise and from one person. We have long traded on the fact that as a party we raise most of our money from local supporters and a few charitable type research organisations' donations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I don't eat Weetabix since I discovered they were once big donors to the Tories, and I steer as clear of Sainsbury businesses as I can because of their connection with Labour donations. I don't knowingly smoke Philip Morris products (Marlboro cigarettes in the main) because of their funding of George Bush.

But, from what I can gather, despite people continually dredging the donation up, the Electoral Commission has confirmed that it was permissible and that matter is closed. No doubt someone will correct me, excitedly, on that if they have evidence to the contrary.

What I am pissed off with though is the fact that some chap who apparently did not seek any influence in the party at the time his donation was made has subsequently been pushed, or has pushed himself, into a position of making singularly unhelpful comments about the way the party has moved in the past year or so, with Stewart Wheeler-esque "threats" that he would give more money if they did things the way he hoped they would when he gave the money. As if he actually had some influence, which, in any kind of ballot about it amongst the membership I think I can confidently say he doesn't. I hoped on every occasion that they would have the balls to say "thanks but no thanks" and so far as I can see, they have. And he has gotten increasingly petulant about it. So he did, really, seek some kind of influence, even if after the fact.

I don't know the guy - he seems like quite a fun character. He seems to have gotten involved in funding a political party without really understanding the ethos and independent mindedness of its members. But Ming was right in October - there was nothing at that stage that appeared to make him unacceptable as a donor if he had wanted to give more and the commission said he was acceptable. I would not have accepted it, but then I'm only a foot soldier paying for my own Focuses at election time and so on, and not involved in how much money it takes to run the party as a whole and how easy it might be to raise equivalent sums required in this sad modern world of big money politics from small donations.

And finally, I certainly won't cry for HSBC if they feel wronged in this. As readers will know I couldn't give a fig for the already over-privileged world of bankers and the usury they inflict on society and might even rejoice at one of them having had the wool pulled over their eyes by a relatively small financial operator - if you sup with the devil....

And if somehow, though it seems unlikely, they get the right to demand his money back from us, I will probably be the first in the queue with my thirty-five quid share to make sure we can do so and not have to rely on big donors like this again. And I hope others in the party would do so likewise in proportion to their wealth and level of commitment.

Jock's Place - I just can't get excited about Michael Brown - Comments

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I just can't get excited about Michael Brown