The Labour party are very short of money but the taxpayer can always be used to subsidise them

I note that whilst the Labour party are running short of money they are not running out of ways to spend taxpayers money on supporting Labour's pre-election campaign. Whilst The Times reports that:

"Labour’s Cabinet tour of the country was engulfed in controversy last night after it emerged that ministers were using the regional visits to stage party events before an election campaign.

As Gordon Brown takes his Government on the road to the North East, it was revealed that Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, used a publicly funded trip to Exeter to hold an election meeting with activists.

In a leaked letter from Ms Harman seen by The Times, she made plans to meet candidates, officials and trade unionists from across the South West region to discuss campaign strategy.

The letter, sent 12 days before the February 5 visit, said: “This will be a chance for me to hear directly from you as party members in a private meeting to talk about the issues and campaigning activity in the South West. It will be particularly helpful for me to hear from you in the run-up to the general election about the activities taking place in the area.”

...

The Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: “Gordon Brown has been caught red-handed using government money to fund political activity. It is clear that these meetings are simply designed to ship the Cabinet into marginal seats to secure good PR for Labour’s election campaign at taxpayers’ expense.”

Mr Carswell has written to Sir Gus O’Donnell, the head of the Civil Service, asking him to consider blocking further regional Cabinet meetings and to investigate whether the meeting breached ministerial rules, which say that public money must not be used for political or electioneering events. "

Harriet Harman's defence is frankly beyond satire:

"Ms Harman denied breaking the ministerial code. Her office said that the taxpayer would have paid for her to travel to Exeter but that the party would have picked up costs to and from the event at Exeter Labour Hall."

Maybe us poor taxpayers could be allowed to compare the two figures; something tells me that the cost of transporting Ms Harman from London, whether via first class train, chauffeured car or plane (along with officials and aides) will somewhat exceed the cost of travelling across Exeter and hiring a hall. Let's see the figures...

However the key passage was this:

"Mr Brown held two regional Cabinets in 2008 and five last year. There will be two this month alone. All were close to or in key marginal seats. "

I wonder what might account for this increase in such regional Cabinet meetings if not being in the run-up to an election?


The other thing that I have noticed is that the Government's advertising campaign is running full blast; not only are there posters everywhere and radio ads extolling the virtues of direct.gov.uk but some ITV ad breaks are solely filled by Labour Government advisories.

Labour are near insolvency and have nearly bankrupted the Country; well done to all the fools who fell for Tony 'pretty straight guy' Blair and Gordon 'Prudence' Brown in 1997, some of us did warn you!