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The Times continues its single minded investigation into that donation...Lib Dems' £2.4m was donated by fraudulent firm.

Now, don't get me wrong - if it came to it I would pay my share, on the condition that all the "muppets" were fired first of course...but the Times says at one point:

If the Electoral Commission forces the party to surrender the gift, each member will become liable for a share of the debt.

Whaaat? Since when? I expect the remaining few members of the Labour and Tory parties to resign immediately then to avoid being severally liable for their parties' debts. I've read and reread the section of PPERA on donations since this story broke. It mentions none of this whatever. Can the Times back this up?

Still...the judge did say that "It is also clear that Michael Brown tried to hide the fact that there had been no legitimate trading with the funds supplied to him". Seems like a good defense to me - if the person making the donation was trying to hide the fact that he wasn't trading to the extent that a judge mentioned that is what he was doing, how on earth is anyone else meant to determine otherwise in 30 days, when it has taken the resources of HSBC and the legal system 18 months to do so.

...as an enduring political hot potato. From Hezza, to Mandy, to Prezza, it has been, if nothing else, the best investment in screwing politicians of the millennium so far!

Nonetheless, it was *our* investment. And should never have been passed on to rent seekers for nothing. Whoever made that decision and survived deserves hanging from its fancy roof structure.

Technorati Tags: politics, sleaze, scandals

An article on the BBC today about housing and nationalists:

BBC NEWS | Politics | Housing 'key to far right rise':
By Dominic Casciani

Competition for housing is the "frontline" of a battle to prevent the far right's rise, MPs have warned.

Labour MP John Cruddas and Lib Dem Simon Hughes said policymakers had failed to recognise BNP gains were linked to anger over who gets homes.

...reminded me of a scene in "Cathy Come Home" the other night where the women in the hostel are arguing with a black woman that "her type" was getting all the available housing.

Plus ca change...

The BBC says that Blair delays holiday over Mid-East crisis.

Now I am something of an expert when it comes to procrastination eating into my annual leave, so I can reasonably confidently suggest to our glorious leader that if he had started three weeks ago when most of us wanted him to, he'd probably be enjoying his R&R by now...:)

I have no particular beef with this. However, it is interesting to note that one of the classic demonstrations of the effects of such policy on Ricardian land rents is the story of London Bridge tolls.

Way back, when I don;t know, but since it is quoted by Churchill in 1909 I guess in the nineteenth century, London Bridge was a toll bridge. The least well off workers in the City of London mostly lived in poor Southwark and had to pay the tolls to get to and from work. The Southwark parish charities complained that they had to dispense such a dole in the area because the pay in the city and the tolls did not leave the workers enough to live on.

So the government lifted the tolls. Everyone was happy. For a short while. Then the parish charities noticed that the dole they were handing out rose again to the same levels seen while the bridge tolls were in place. What had happened? The city workers were being paid the same and now had one less cost to worry about. Yet they were just as poor.

It was found that the rents in Southwark had risen by about the same amount as the bridge tolls had once taken.

Forth Bridges Dark Skies
Originally uploaded by Duncan_Smith

So, when the BBC reports that:

The Scottish Parliament's transport committee has backed the Scottish National Party's policy of abolishing tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges.
In a report, the committee is expected to highlight that the cost will be £16m a year in lost revenue.

Isn't it a good job that the Scottish Parliament are looking elsewhere at Land Value Tax rather than see this public money feed directly through into a subsidy to landowners in Fife?