The George Osborne "affair"

The BBC are still trying to equate George Osborne's question over double disclosure with Peter Hain's non-disclosure.

Guido Fakes has the emails that were sent between George Osborne's office and Alda Barry (Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards). These seem to show that George Osborne's team were trying to ensure they were complying with the law. The one remaining area that is being forensically questioned is that of timing, the money was received 10 months before this set of emails. It seems clear to me that what happened was this:

1. Money received for Osborne's office in January 2007.

2. Receipt notified to the Electoral Commission.

3. Labour funding scandal breaks in November 2007.

4. Conservative Central Office ask all MPs to make sure their funding has been 100% reported and that there are no open questions.

5. George Osborne's office look through all receipts and think "umm this one is tricky, I wonder how the rules apply to this sort of donation". They email Alda Barry to cover their backs.

6. The answer comes back from Alda Barry that all has been done correctly.


What then happened was that the Peter Hain funding horror story breaks and the Labour party need to muddy the waters a bit. So they get the BBC to start the investigation into George Osborne donations and to conflate the two entirely different stories into one. This is having some effect as some people are thinking "they are all as bad as each other", rather than "my the Labour party is full of duplicitous liars".

Peter Hain is hoping that if he can ride this storm out for a few more days, maybe a week, and the BBC keep the equivalence story running that he may be able to keep his jobs. I am torn between wanting Peter Hain out on his well upholstered orange back-side and wanting Gordon Brown to keep him in position so as to show the public just what levels of amorality Gordon Brown will accept in order to keep a minister in position.

Even Tony Blair was man enough to make the tough decisions and get rid of embarrassing ministers; albeit in the cases of Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett
he then took them back into cabinet again, only to have a parting of the ways a second time.