£15 is also the cost of joining the Conservative Party. Clearly there’s a going rate for being screwed by someone who doesn’t care about you.
Catesby Esq
Now call Guido cynical if you will, but on the day the Charity Commissioners announce their intentions, and the Telegraph articles show the press chase has begun, we learn from a deftly placed story in the government’s favourite mouthpiece, The Sun, that tragically Gordon’s son has cystic fibrosis. A good day to front-page the tragic news?
DEVELOPING – MORE TO FOLLOW
The exchange took place at this year’s Labour Party conference during a reception hosted by the GuardianObserver, where Levy took it upon himself to act as an unofficial “meeter and greeter”.
Levy and I started talking, particularly about a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on the “cash for honours” affair which I had presented and had been broadcast that same night.
Levy was his legendary charming self. Disarmingly, he told me that his wife had watched the programme and found it very fair. I was delighted, but said there was one matter I felt I had to raise with him. What did he make of the general point I made in the programme: that the loans from wealthy party supporters were not intended as loans, but were to be converted into donations?
He gripped my arm like a long-lost friend and said, by way of answer: “Only some of them.” I asked him what he meant and whether he could point to any specific loans. He volunteered the name of Lord Sainsbury, the billionaire former science minister who had lent the party £2m.
The point is that large donations, under this government’s own legislation, had to be declared, but loans did not. So what exactly was Levy saying to me? Did he misunderstand my original question? That is possible, but he had gone on to give me an example. Was he joking? Again possibly, but it’s an odd matter to joke about. Or was he merely expressing his hope that the loans would be converted into donations?
UPDATE :
According to an impeccable source who has just emailed me, the Yard’s attention has been drawn to the Martin Bright story in this week’s New Statesman.As Christmas approaches it is the traditional time to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. You know, the hopeless, friendless and soon-to-be bankrupt. Someone has established a blog to Keep Tony Blair as PM. I’m not quite sure why, as the link was received by Your Servant via multiple intermediaries. Heavy irony suspected.
The comments on LabourHome say it all;
Surely somebody else could be put up to doing PMQS. Prescott has had most of his other jobs taken from him. Usually, it’s a laugh (mostly at him, but he can crack a good joke every now and then), but even by his own awful standards, it was an embarrassment.
I firmly believe that John Prescott should have been sacked and should not even be in the position.
JP had been encouraged to be “off sick”