Cash for Questions

[goldenecitrone]

Same old tories. A good omen?

MP Patrick Mercer quits Tory whip over Panorama lobbying inquiry

 

[brogdale]

Housey, housey!

 

[goldenecitrone]

The Cash-for-Questions Affair: Major rocked as payments scandal grows: Minister resigns over 'cash for questions' PM reveals he knew of allegations by Harrods owner three weeks ago


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/t...by-harrods-owner-three-weeks-ago-1444057.html


Brings back happy memories.

 

[spring-peeper]

I thought it was this was a game.

 

[goldenecitrone]

I thought it was this was a game.

You can say that again.

 

[Corax]

I thought it was this was a game.

Yeah, me too. I was hoping for a fiver for asking where babies come from.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Yeah, me too. I was hoping for a fiver for asking where babies come from.

One for Cecil Parkinson, I think.

 

[coley]

No bugger will seek to end it though,as its the main cash cow for ex MPs and civil servants. Expect the usual commissions enquiries. ( more cash for those involved) and a big fat zero at the end of it.

 

[brogdale]

Here's one.......how many threads does this 'news' story require?

Say...£20?

 

[frogwoman]

how far is this 90s revival going to go?

 

[coley]

how far is this 90s revival going to go?

Not a revival, never gone away, just hasn't made the charts for a while.

 

[DexterTCN]

Not just tories.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10093692/Row-over-lobbying-and-MPs-freebies.html

Also some lords, apparently.

 

[brogdale]

Not just tories.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10093692/Row-over-lobbying-and-MPs-freebies.html

Also some lords, apparently.

No, the loathsome slug Vaz thought he was going to get a free beano out of it!

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

This happens to be the third thread attributed to this story.

The story has to be seen in the context of the hideously downplayed Peter Cruddas scandal of early last year.

Peter Cruddas has a personal fortune of some £800 plus million and was chief treasurer for the tory party.

He was caught on film soliciting bribes to influence policy. Apart from him stepping down, nothing came of it.

It is reasonable to assume that at least some government policy is a direct result of such bribery, possibly a great deal. This is magnified when taking into consideration the vast number of privatisations being carried out.

So the going rate to bribe government for policy influence is 100 to 250k

The going rate to hire an MP looks upward of £1k a day.

Is there any decent counterweight to the purport that unless all major bills and contracts under this government are subject to independent scrutiny backed by potential prosecutions, that this government is now lacking in even basic legitimacy?

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

And as if by magic...Within 24 hours of a potentially massive corruption scandal starting to burgeon we are treated to a "who's shagging who?" riddle that could well have been known about for months.

Isn't life funny like that?

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, What sort of of PR company do you run? One man got in some minor trouble for us - i know, let's cover it up by faking some stuff about something that might cause us even bigger trouble.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Yeah, What sort of of PR company do you run? One man got in some minor trouble for us - i know, let's cover it up by faking some stuff about something that might cause us even bigger trouble.

Not 1 man Butchers. This sting alone takes in quite a few by the looks of things and points to something known to be absolutely endemic by politics watchers. Whereas a sex scandal is almost sure to be little more than salacious flim-flam.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

This interesting piece is a mix of bleeding obvious with decent summation with a bit of seeming denialism thrown in.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/02/mps-wrapped-tentacles-lobbyists-rawnsley


Towards the end he says

The starkest of <the dangers>, the paying of direct cash bribes to purchase changes to government policy – seems to be mercifully rare in Britain.

That's having said this

Closely examine many of the bad policy decisions of recent years and you will often find lobbying somewhere in the mix. The multiple City scandals were facilitated by the great success of the banking lobby in persuading ministers that "light-touch regulation" was the way to go. The horsemeat scandal was in part the result of pressure brought by the supermarkets for less stringent regulation of food standards.

And he makes the classic blind eye mistake of calling the Cruddas outrage "cash for access" when it was explicitly "cash for policy".

I can see where this is headed now, and where it has been allowed to be headed.

The lobbyists and MPs wanted the corruption to continue as long as absolutely possible, even a modest register proposal got dropped from the recent Queens Speech. Cameron talked about it as a priority and will have done nothing in 5 years. But they have managed to smash the poor, drive vulnerable people to suicide and all other kinds of unholy shit, because that is their function. Accountable democracy is absolutely not their function.
Now they may have to do something about it, and we will be endlessly patronised about how "the rules were too vague/broad" (see: Expenses). Within about 5 years there will be some weak frameworks established, with plenty of time for people to figure out ways round them. That's 5 years to establish them, maybe not to implement them.
It has to be put off as long as possible because parties need the bribes for funds and individuals have clearly come to expect them as a supplement to the pittance of salary plus expenses plus (often) outside work.
This is what has changed in terms of respect for democracy since the 2008 banking and expenses scandals: fuck all. They count on our stupidity and apathy. And now the establishment have found a pro establishment way of rebelling against the establishment to promote, so the social media whoops of "UKIP all the way" are only likely to increase.

 

[treelover]

Lord Mckenzie is a former cop isn't he?, well well..

 

[treelover]

His father was Andrew Cunningham, leader of the Labour Party in the Northern Region in the 1970s, who was disgraced in the 1974 Poulson scandal. Dr Cunningham was first elected as member for Whitehaven in 1970; and the renamed Copeland constituency, which was the same constituency as Whitehaven, in 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cunningham,_Baron_Cunningham_of_Felling

Oh, and the odious Blairite Jack Cunningham, seems its in the family.

 

[Poo Flakes]

It is reasonable to assume that at least some government policy is a direct result of such bribery, possibly a great deal. This is magnified when taking into consideration the vast number of privatisations being carried out.

Well, an education review was conducted by "well-known entrepreneur", Sebastian James. Who just also happens to be in that famous picture of Boris, Cameron and co from their school days.

James is the son of Lord Northbourne, an aristocrat and big landowner from Kent. He's an entrepreneur whose former ventures include a DVD rental business, Silverscreen, and a "dotcom", ClassicForum, that was supposed to be a sort of eBay for rare books.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-the-bullingdon-clubs-class-of-87-436192.html

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/James Reviewpdf.pdf

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Telegraph now has Francis Maude trumpeting that "something will be done" - lobbyists register and power for voters to get rid of disgraced MPs no less.

So: something that got dropped from the Queen's speech and something promised before the last election should be enough to shut us the fuck up. They really don't give a shit.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Well, an education review was conducted by "well-known entrepreneur", Sebastian James. Who just also happens to be in that famous picture of Boris, Cameron and co from their school days.





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-the-bullingdon-clubs-class-of-87-436192.html

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/James Reviewpdf.pdf

Um, so what? It was a bit of a silly report, but in what way do you view its commissioning or conclusions as corrupt?

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Also note: They suddenly might get this stuff together years after they should have. Hammering the poor never took so long to organise. They wanted to be as corrupt as possible for as long as possible, they probably succeeded.

 

[Poo Flakes]

Um, so what? It was a bit of a silly report, but in what way do you view its commissioning or conclusions as corrupt?

It's commissioning.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

It's commissioning.

People at that level don't write reports for Whitehall because they earn significant money from it. They do it to get brownie points towards a peerage, to show off, to burnish their CV or to fill gaps in their employment. James's conclusions weren't obviously self-serving; they were wrong, but that's always what happens when you ask retailers about government procurement.

 

[Poo Flakes]

People at that level don't write reports for Whitehall because they earn significant money from it. They do it to get brownie points towards a peerage, to show off, to burnish their CV or to fill gaps in their employment. James's conclusions weren't obviously self-serving; they were wrong, but that's always what happens when you ask retailers about government procurement.

Well, yeah. Still an embarrassingly obvious sign of British patronage at work.

 

[butchersapron]

Now going to be used to limit labour union funding and funnel tax payer money to the lib dems

 

[marty21]

it's great to be a Lord you can fiddle your expenses, serve time, be suspended from the Lords, and then come back again to get more expenses at least MPs if they get caught and imprisoned, they're unlikely to get back in again (unless they are made peers )

 

[articul8]

Now going to be used to limit labour union funding and funnel tax payer money to the lib dems

v dangerous stuff - needs watching really carefully