Bribing the electorate?

I read in The Times that Gordon Brown is planning another bribe for the electorate. To follow the £2.7 billion spent pre the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, he is now planning to add another £1 billion as more than 7 million families who receive child benefit are to be given a one-off payment of £150 to help meet soaring fuel bills.

There are two key parts of The Times article that I want to examine, the first related to the electioneering aspect of this payment (my emphasis):

"Until now it had been expected that extra financial assistance would be targeted at pensioners, the low-paid and people on benefits who suffer from “fuel poverty”, defined as when more than 10% of household income is used to heat the home.

However, Brown is determined that middle-class families - whose votes will determine the outcome of the next general election - should also gain from any new handouts.

Michael Fallon, Conservative chairman of the Commons Treasury scrutiny committee, said: “This is blatant, indiscriminate electioneering in one of the final winters before the general election.”"

Gordon Brown, like Tony Blair before him, sees his role as that of winning elections and if that means creating a client state of new public sector workers, paid to do very little of value but who owe their jobs to a Labour government, then so be it - it's only taxpayers money after all. If it means slipping the electorate the odd £ billion pounds in the run up to an election then so what, it's once again only taxpayers money.

The second extract concerns how the news of this "payment" leaked:

"Details of the winter fuel payment scheme were inadvertently revealed by a top civil servant who was overheard discussing the secret strategy on a train.

Sir Brian Bender, permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, told a colleague that ministers were keen to give extra money to “ordinary people” worried about rising energy bills....

on July 25, Bender, a veteran mandarin, was travelling in a first-class carriage of the 3.05pm GNER service from Leeds to London.

A passenger who was sitting near the civil servant said she heard him disclose the prime minister’s fightback plans to a younger colleague during the journey.

“I first thought they were bankers,” said the passenger, who holds a senior position in the media. “They were talking about deals, investments and large sums of money. Then I realised they were civil servants discussing government policy.

“The two of them were having a wide-ranging conversation. They were talking about their career plans and their summer holidays, but they were mainly talking about the government plans relating to the rising price of fuel.”

Bender, whom she identified later from pictures on his department’s website, said he was returning to London to discuss the fuel plans. “It was only as we drew into the station that it became clear exactly what the plan was,” said the fellow passenger.

“I heard him say: ‘He wants to give it to the ordinary people.’ I think he was referring to Gordon Brown. His colleague suggested the extra cash would go to the needy, but he replied, ‘No, a fuel rebate for everybody on child benefit’.”"

What was the World War Two slogan - "Careless talk costs lives"; maybe we could rephrase that as "Carelessly discussed bribes may cost votes".