Cash for Peerages...

brennan

brennan

Argumentative Brit
Joined
May 12, 2005
Messages
9,023
Location
Worthing, Southern England
Lord Levy 'helping police with their inquiries'... again.

Newsnight.

Lord Levy arrested under suspicion of 'conspiracy to pervert the course of justice', there's been talk of a secret e-mail system at number ten, and now another arrest. The police smell a cover-up.
 
Who is lord levy?
 
A labour peer, one of Tony Blair's bestest buddies, and in charge of Fund raising for the Labour Party. The contention here being that people may have been given peerages (a bit like being made a Senator) in return for giving the Labour party money. This would be illegal.
 
Looks like the whole stinking mess is bout to fall on their heads. Not just Lab but the Tories too. Hell even the Libs have the odd bone hidden away.
 
It's all corrupt. We should have state funding. Our whole politicalsystem needs an overhaul...lets ditch the monarchy, swap to proportional representation and state fund the parties.
 
The really funny thing about all this is that it is well known that honours have been bought for centuries, way back past medieval times when the cash might arrive in the form of armed men, of course.

Anyone would think this has only started in the last few years.

Don't get me wrong here, I would be hugely enjoying Blair's discomfiture if he actually evinced any. But to actually convict anyone of this would appear a bit tokenistic.

On the other hand, in a truly morally corrupt country like Britain, I see no prospect of this ever coming to trial. Let's not kid ourselves.
 
bathsheba666 said:
Anyone would think this has only started in the last few years.
Click to expand...
Dude, no-one is stoopid enough to think that. This could herald the end of all that crap though. Hopefully.

@ Davo. First-past-the-post means communities are democratically represented and we get a strong government with a relatively narrow majority. I think it beats PR hands down.
 
brennan said:
@ Davo. First-past-the-post means communities are democratically represented and we get a strong government with a relatively narrow majority. I think it beats PR hands down.
Click to expand...
No it doesn't. You get places where party #1 gets 24,000 votes and party #2 gets 23,500 votes. Party #1's supporters are represented in parliment. Party #2's are not. Not very representative of the people!
 
brennan said:
Yes they are. They win someplace else.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. And what about party #3, that gets consistent 10% support across the country, and gets no seats at all? In practice, parties #1 & 2 will still get seats, whether it's using first past the post or preferential voting. But it's a great way to entrench a two party system. Proportional representation means that having the support of 10% of the population will give you roughly 10% of the seats in government, instead of no say at all.
 
Yeah, but who do they represent? If I don't like my local MP I can vote him out next time around. Under a PR system, that simply can't happen. Remember Portillo getting the boot? Wouldn't happen under PR. What about independants like Martin Bell? If one guy gets 2% of the vote does he get to represent 4 seats?

The idea we have a 2 party system is faulty at best. Off the top of my head I can think of 7 parties represented in the Commons.
 
On topic, if they have something, I wish they would gte on with it and press charges. The current plan of arresting people and then releasing them looks a bit like strong arm intimidation tactics (and no, I'm not suprised that the British police are prepared to use such an approach).

On the the exciting PR vs First Past the Post debate, how do you guys feel about the consequences of the mechanisms you prefer ? On one hand, we have FPTP, which allows a majority more easily, allowing unpopular but necessary decisions to be made, but also is easily open to allegations of being unrepresentative and dictatorial. With PR, the tendency is to end up with horse trading between different parties, disproportionate importance being given to extreme positions, and invariably some people seeing their party compromise on the very issues which were the reasons why they voted for them. Again, potentially unrepresentative, less chance of dictatorial rule, but perhaps an inability to genuinely lead the country in the way that is required in areas such as global warming.
 
I prefer strong government.

linky. There are 12 parties represented in the Commons, with a few as 18,000 votes.

Parties unrepresented in the commons will still have local councillors, so are still part of the Democratic process.
 
brennan said:
Yeah, but who do they represent? If I don't like my local MP I can vote him out next time around. Under a PR system, that simply can't happen. Remember Portillo getting the boot? Wouldn't happen under PR. What about independants like Martin Bell? If one guy gets 2% of the vote does he get to represent 4 seats?
Click to expand...

Never heard of either Portillo or Bell. And I agree, proportional representation has its own problems. One possible way around some of those problems is to split the country into a number of regions, and have proportional representation for each region, rather than just 1 seat per region.

The idea we have a 2 party system is faulty at best. Off the top of my head I can think of 7 parties represented in the Commons.
Click to expand...

We have 150 lower house seats, 3 are independent, the other 147 are from one of 2 parties. Actually, it's from one of 4, but the country liberal party is simply what the liberal party is called in NT, and the national party is more or less a country version of the liberal party, the 2 parties have worked as a coalition for years. The most representatives we've had in any election who weren't from those 2 factions is 5 out of 148. Last election, the greens received over 7% of the vote, and don't have a single seat. We do have an entrenched, 2 party system, and it remains in place because we don't have proportional representation.
 
sanabas said:
We have 150 lower house seats, 3 are independent, the other 147 are from one of 2 parties. Actually, it's from one of 4, but the country liberal party is simply what the liberal party is called in NT, and the national party is more or less a country version of the liberal party, the 2 parties have worked as a coalition for years. The most representatives we've had in any election who weren't from those 2 factions is 5 out of 148. Last election, the greens received over 7% of the vote, and don't have a single seat. We do have an entrenched, 2 party system, and it remains in place because we don't have proportional representation.
Click to expand...
Ouch, our third party (Lib Dems) won 62 seats in 2005, with 22% of the vote.
 
GinandTonic said:
Looks like the whole stinking mess is bout to fall on their heads. Not just Lab but the Tories too. Hell even the Libs have the odd bone hidden away.
Click to expand...


On this one, I support Scotland Yard.

Openly declared donations are one thing, but
acceptance of secret loans is truly abysymal.

Means the foreign millionaire can dictate

'do what I want or I will recall my loan'.

The UK Prime Minister should be serving the interests
of the 60 million UK citizens; not lobbying other
governments because some foreign non domiciled tax
b/millionaire avoider/evader has leant Labour party £2M.

If the national poltical parties can not fund their
lying advertisements and despicable PR men,
then so much the better.

Let them go broke or honest. Political parties
funded on membership fees would be better.
 
Shouldn’t the title of this thread be “Conspiracy to pervert the cause of Justice”? That is what the last two arrests have been about and is far more serious than cash for peerages (in terms of years in gaol for example).

I wrote this earlier and was about to start a new thread myself.

The net closes in on Blair: Is this his Watergate?

For those who don’t know – Blair and the Labour party has been subjected to a police investigation for some months now into the so-called “Cash for peerages” row. Basically he has been giving seats in the House of Lords in return for cash donations/loans to the Labour party. Now we all know he is guilty, it’s just been a matter of whether it can be proved or not.

Blair himself became the first PM to have his collar felt (ie interviewed) by the police. He, not surprisingly, showed no remorse – as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Well last week the inquiry took a giant leap in the wrong direction for Blair when one of his closest aids at No10 was arrested under caution not for the cash-for-peerages fiasco but for conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice.
This is where the Watergate similarities might come in to play as we all know it was not the Watergate break-in that finished Nixon off but the subsequent cover up.
And that appears to be what is going on at No10 – there are reports of deleted emails and destroyed documents etc.
Everything was ratcheted up another notch today when Lord Levy (the guy who did the actual dirty work for Blair of collecting the loans in from peer-wannabees) was arrested under caution also for conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice.

Lord Levy rearrested over No 10 'cover-up'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2576044,00.html

Cash-for-honours trail that leads to Number 10
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2201099.ece

Perverting the cause of justice is a very serious offence and can attract many years in prison. If one of Blair’s close aids is found guilty there is no doubt Blair would have to resign and John Prescott would have to take over as PM. :lol:
 
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