'In the last twelve months there were 75 donations reported to the Electoral Commission up to a year late - and therefore illegally.The LibDems are whiter than white in a similar way to Tony Blair's New Labour party; ie: not at all.
Of these, none were from the Conservative Party, two were from the Labour Party and seventy three were from the Liberal Democrats - the whiter than white, holier than thou party.'
"At last. The truth is out. The man who's bankrolled the Tories for much of the past decade and has consistently refused to answer questions about his tax status has finally come clean. Michael Ashcroft is a "non-dom" - in other words he's not been paying British taxes on his non-UK earnings throughout the time he's been central to the Conservatives campaigning."In one comment near the end Nick Robinson does manage to mention one of Labour's non-dom financiers
"Labour MPs have long obsessed about the man they accuse of trying to buy an election in a country in which he does not even bother to be fully resident for tax purposes. Their attack is blunted somewhat by the fact that Gordon Brown made Sraj Paul - a Labour donor and non-dom - a peer and a member of the Privy Council."But that is it. So for a more extensive list of Labour's money-men, you should turn to Iain Dale:
"latest figures show that since 2001, Labour have taken over £10 million from eight reportedly ‘non-dom’ donors:That's just over £10.5 million to Labour from non-doms but to the BBC it's just not a news story.
• Lord Paul – £69,250 in donations to Labour, including £45,000 to Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign. A close friend of Gordon Brown and appointed to the Privy Council last summer, he has admitted to being ‘non-dom’.
• Lakshmi Mittal - £4.125 million in donations to Labour.
• Sir Ronald Cohen - £2.55 million in donations to Labour. Cohen was appointed chair of the Social Investment Taskforce, which was announced by the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
• Sir Christopher Ondaatje - £1.7 million in donations to Labour.
• Sir Gulam Noon - £532,826 in donations to Labour.
• William Bollinger - £510,725 in donations to Labour.
• Mahmoud Khayami - £985,000 in donations to Labour including £5,000 to Hazel Blears’ deputy leadership campaign. He has helped bankroll two flagship schools, one of which Gordon Brown opened, and was personally thanked for a donation by Tony Blair.
• Dr David Potter - £90,000 in a donation to Labour. He has previously delivered a lecture at Downing Street."
"Labour is to delay repaying its "cash for honours" loans for up to a decade as it attempts to plug a £16m black hole in its finances.
Senior officials are holding urgent talks with wealthy backers about restructuring the debts as the party struggles to stave off a financial crisis. Loans worth millions of pounds are due for review by the end of October – several of them from men who became embroiled in the honours police investigation after they were nominated for peerages.
Party bosses say their wealthy lenders will agree to put loan repayments on hold for a year to allow the debts to be restructured so they can be paid back over between seven and 10 years."
"Labour insiders suggest the decline has slowed markedly and even bottomed out, with the party now picking up 1,000 members a week during its deputy leadership election.
Membership has crept back up to 180,000 in the last three weeks."
"Some thoughts come to mind:
Can the Labour Party meet it's debts as and when they fall due? If not, does that mean they are trading whilst insolvent?
How many times can a "loan" be rolled over before it is a donation not a loan?
The "loans" were claimed to have been made on commercial terms, have the terms been made public on any of these "loans"?"
"Labour chiefs have until the end of this month to plug a £4 million hole in the party’s finances and avert the possibility of a formal declaration of bankruptcy....
Auditors are due to sign off the party’s accounts soon after the end of May, but there are fears that they will refuse to do so and instead declare the party insolvent.
Arrangements have been made to account for most of the party’s £21 million debt, through negotiations with the Co-op Bank and rescheduling deals done with the donors of the controversial loans which led to the “cash-for-honours” affair.
But officers have identified a gap in the balance sheet of around £4 million which must be closed in order to satisfy the auditors, either by cash in the bank or certifiable promissory notes."
"Now look out for the Labour Party suggesting that the state funding of political parties is the best solution to the "democratic deficit" in this country. They could use their large majority to get this into place before the next election and will choose to base the calculations for the funding on an average of the votes received at the last three elections so as to avoid the full impact of the coming election."
"Labour is in emergency talks to renegotiate more than £10m of loans from wealthy businessmen to prevent itself running out of money.
Most of the millionaires who secretly lent money to Labour in the run-up to the 2005 election ought to be repaid in the coming months but the party – which is £20m in the red – is in no position to do this.
As a result, it is holding combined talks with all the lenders to find a single agreement that would allow the party to stagger repayments over up to nine years. An announcement is just weeks away, according to sources on both sides of the discussions."
