Ed is about to take on Francis Maude over donor transparency and private dinners. Perhaps then Ed Miliband would like to tell us what he was chatting about in the Rolls Royce with Mr Assem “Pharoah” Allam who has just bunged him £100,000. Ed should not forget his televised promise to Guido to come clean:
As Ed prepares to stand up and lecture Cameron on shady dinners with rich business donors, Guido thought he would give the Labour leader a gentle reminder of his promise to publish a list of attendees at a suspiciously “private and off the record” dinner held for him at the home of lobbyist-spinmeister Roland Rudd in October:
As Guido reported at the time, Rudd has some charming friends:
“…known clients include Murdoch, the Daily Mail, not so environmentally sensitive miners like Rio Tinto and African Barrick Gold. Rudd’s client list includes Boots and easyJet, owned by predatory asset stripping private equity companies, the most aggressive takeover group in the world KKR – the original “Barbarians at the Gate” – investment banks like Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, UK taxpayer bailed out banks like Royal Bank of Scotland and Greece’s bankrupt Alpha Bank. Glencore the rogue commodities trading operation run out of Switzerland retains Rudd.
Labour’s current favourite targets the big energy companies like ENI, Shell, EON and Centrica could have been sat round the table with Ed. Embarrassingly UK Uncut favourites Vodafone may have passed the port to Ed and given Rudd represents Wonga, which the Labour Party’s Stella Creasey campaigns against, there will be extortionate interest if they were there.”
The time is long past for Ed to come clean about donors as well…
