THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008
Hain : Foreign Funded Electoral Strategy Conference
"This is Not a Labour Party Event"
Hain is trying to spin his way out of trouble claiming that the conference he has organised is not an official Labour Party event. It is quite clear that it is a Labour Party supporting event and attended by party members and their German allies.
He is therefore in receipt of declarable benefit in kind under Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.Part IV Control of donations to registered parties and their members etc.
Chapter I Donations to registered parties
Donations for purposes of Part IV
51 Sponsorship
(1) For the purposes of this Part sponsorship is provided in relation to a registered party if—
(a) any money or other property is transferred to the party or to any person for the benefit of the party, and
(b) the purpose (or one of the purposes) of the transfer is (or must, having regard to all the circumstances, reasonably be assumed to be)—
(i) to help the party with meeting, or to meet, to any extent any defined expenses incurred or to be incurred by or on behalf of the party, or
(ii) to secure that to any extent any such expenses are not so incurred.
(2) In subsection (1) “defined expenses” means expenses in connection with—
(a) any conference, meeting or other event organised by or on behalf of the party;
(b) the preparation, production or dissemination of any publication by or on behalf of the party; or
(c) any study or research organised by or on behalf of the party.
Hain can try to argue differently until he is blue (rather than orange) in the face, here is the evidence of the conference agenda that shows that when Hain told local reporters "This is not a Labour Party event" yesterday, he was lying:Gavyn Davies Advocates Mugabinomics
Some of the more excitable co-conspirators have been warning in the comments on this blog for that Britain is heading the way of Zimbabwe. Guido has until now discounted them as being over the top (yes the comments here do occasionally go ever so over the top).
The government's economic policies do sometimes seem to be a form of voodoo economics involving uncounted debt, faked statistics and ever changing "rules". Gavyn Davies, a former Goldman Sachs managing director and MPC wise man is close to the Brownies - his wife Sue Nye was Gordon's diary secretary and is now the Director of Government Relations in Downing Street. So when he advocates, as he does this morning, turning on the printing presses at the Bank of England and just printing more money to solve our woes, you can believe this is being discussed in Downing Street.
Are we now at the dead end of the New Labour era and Mugabinomics is a serious policy option? This is madness.Welsh Charitable Think Tank Pulls Out of Hain Organised Event
Electoral Commission to Examine Foreign Funding
Peter Hain has organised a conference today in his Neath constituency on"Winning Economically, Winning Politically". Labour politicians and German SPD politicians will be discussing strategy and tactics in a session titled “What was done, what went wrong and how to win back voter support”. The event is financially supported by the SPD's Friedrich Ebert Stiftung think tank. The Welsh Bevan Foundation, an educational charity, was co-sponsoring it.
On Tuesday following complaints made by Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price, the Bevan Foundation pulled out because it feared its charitable status could be compromised.
Price wrote to the Bevan Foundation’s director Victoria Winckler:
Clearly the event was political, Price was entirely right to cite the Smith Institute precedent. The Bevan Foundation secretary Mick Antoniw now says:
“You will no doubt be aware that the Charity Commission began a formal inquiry into the Smith Institute last year occasioned by not dissimilar circumstances, after the Democratic political consultant Robert Shrum was shown to have given electoral advice to Labour Party members based on US experience.
Commenting on the publication of its report into the institute’s political activity, Andrew Hind, the chief executive of the Charity Commission, said: ‘Trustees of charitable think tanks have a responsibility to ensure the political neutrality of the work they do. When a charity operates close to the political environment, it must safeguard its independence and ensure that any involvement it has with political parties is balanced.’“Our reputation is everything and because of the concerns raised and the advice the trustees have received, the foundation will be withdrawing from the event....”
Price is not letting the matter rest: “I will be writing to the Electoral Commission as to whether the funding of what in the afternoon is effectively a Labour election strategy seminar amounts to an impermissible donation. I will also be asking the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to investigate whether the involvement of Peter Hain’s political researcher in organising the conference in any way constitutes a misuse of parliamentary resources.”
Hain is a creature of habit, once again another think tank's funds are being used to further his political ambitions. Just as with the Progressive Policies Forum there appears to be a case to answer for breaches of electoral law - a foreign foundation funding electoral strategy advice is illegal. You would have thought given he is currently under police investigation for funding irregularities Hain would be more cautious, he already has one criminal conviction, he is asking for another...
Full story in the Western Mail.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Clearly if only the Labour Party is benefiting from this conference it is a declarable donation. The Bevan Foundation took the view that it was a party political event and withdrew - quite rightly.
Winning EconomicallyGet your own at Scribd or explore others:
It is clear that the purpose of the event is to assist the Labour Party, it is designed to help the Labour Party win and concerned only with helping Labour secure power in Wales. Hain is breaking the terms of the Act in organising this by accepting a donation from an inpermissable donor.
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