Cash for honours – Page 2

“It Was Downing St. What Done It….”

Published on March 5, 20072 Comments

…seems to be what certain MP’s are alleging about the leaking of the secret email that led to the cash for honours injunction this past weekend:

Downing St blamed for cash for honours leak

David Hencke and Vikram Dodd
Monday March 5, 2007
The Guardian

The MP who triggered the cash for peerages criminal inquiry last night accused Downing Street of leaking vital evidence in the case to the media.

The allegation by Angus MacNeil followed a frenzied weekend of speculation after the BBC was banned by a judge from reporting a leaked email between Downing Street aides about the scandal..

Angus Macneil is the public spirited SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar who with Plaid Cymru MPs made the orginal complaint to the police.

[…]

All news organisations are covered by the gag, but cannot learn terms of what they can and cannot report because the judge who granted the injunction insisted on its terms being secret between the BBC, Scotland Yard, and the attorney general. A spokesman for Lord Goldsmith said the injunction was gained to stop a broadcast which police feared could impede their inquiries, and added: “The terms of the injunction are confidential.”

Yesterday the News of the World quoted the Crown Prosecution Service as saying: “We believe the leaks are coming from government sources, who are trying to disrupt the inquiry.”

[,,,]

Whole story

One of the things that non UKian-politics-wonks may not quite have got their heads around is the dual role of the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith– politically appointed, but able to exercise legal powers over prosecutions even where they affect his political patrons and despite the obvious conflict of interest that causes. The current AG, Lord Goldsmith, refused to recuse himself from acting in in regard to his fellow cabinet members despite his being a member of the government himself. You can see why people are a bit angry, including the LIb Dems (though they weren’t that bothered before) who’re now attempting to co-opt SNP and Plaid Cymru’s initiative:

Liberal Democrats are drawing up plans to force the Attorney General to undergo US-style confirmation hearings and make the post subject to parliamentary approval to reduce any perceived conflict of interest.

Ed Davey, chief of staff to the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, said he supported the injunction after the police warned the story could impede their inquiry. But he said the case highlighted long-standing claims that the Attorney General’s position as a senior cabinet minister could conflictwith his role as the Government’s senior law officer. He said he was “damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t”.

Well, that’s one way of putting it. Personally I think that Goldsmith is so hopelessly compromised he must resign. Just call me a cock-eyed optimist.

But he won’t go and certainly not on a point of actual principle. Goldsmith is Blair’s last real ace-in-the-hole as the CPS gets closer, he won’t give him up in a hurry.

Blair is planning to stay until at least June 16th, if reports of his diary engagements are any guide, and he’s still going to need a pet AG – Labour doesn’t have any money left to fight with so the lawyer in ultimate charge of the prosecution in his pocket is a handy thing to have.

With a moral coward like Goldsmith, he’s got exactly what he needs.

More Cash For Honours: Yes, It Was The Emails

Published on March 4, 2007

The Independent reports:

Email led to BBC legal gag in cash for honours probe
Document at centre of injunction led to change of police tactics, as detectives prepare to send their final files to the CPS By Francis Elliott, Whitehall Editor
Published: 04 March 2007

Detectives in charge of the cash-for-honours investigation gagged the BBC because it was about to reveal details of a significant email, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.

The existence of the email is thought to explain why police switched their attention from the alleged sale of honours to claims that there had been a subsequent cover-up.

Senior BBC sources last night indicated that it would not be seeking to overturn an injunction imposed on Friday night after an application by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who said releasing details of the communication, believed to be known by the BBC political editor Nick Robinson, would harm the inquiry.

The injunction suggests the police are about to send their final files – together with a recommendation about whether to prosecute – to the Crown Prosecution Service.

This newspaper has been told that Tony Blair expects the year-long investigation to come to an end this week. A long-awaited independent report on party funding, delayed until the conclusion of the police probe, is pencilled in for next week.

Detectives are thought to have uncovered the email last year. It was one of the “major developments” alluded to by John Yates, the police chief in charge of the investigation, in a letter to MPs on 16 November.

Since that letter, the Prime Minister’s chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, has been arrested and questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Ruth Turner, No 10’s director of government relations, has also been arrested. Ms Turner has been questioned on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, not, as in Lord Levy’s case, of conspiracy to do so.

Whole story

[My emphasis]

Goldsmith Saves Blair’s Neck, Gags BBC

Published on March 2, 20071 Comment

The BBC’s reporting that recently-admitted adulterer and Blair-appointed Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has slapped a hastily-appiled-for injunctionon the BBC that prohibits it from reporting a significant development in the Cash for Honours investigation. The BBC website is reported to have earlier illustrated its report with a photo of Ruth Turner, that’s since been taken down, and Guido and the other Tory blogs are all atwitter.

Aside from the sheer conflict of interest displayed by the government’s senior law officer intervening to directly protect his political patrons from exposure it’s just plain dumb – there’s no doubt that the story’ll be out all over the world by morning.

My money’s on Ruth Turner when Education Secretary having emailed something very indiscreet to Lord Levy and to Tony Blair. Either that or Blair himself has been arrested under caution; but at this point we don’t actually know.

C’mon Beeb, cry havoc and let slip the story to the foreign press or blogs! Has none of you any post-Hutton balls?

New Labour must be feeling it though: Ruth ~~Turner~~ Kelly was openly jeered on Radio 4 this evening when she suggested on Any Questions that everyone respects Tony Blair, while Ken Loach replied, to tumultuous applause, that Blair and all his government should be tried at Den Haag for war crimes.

Then there’s this ultimate humiliation:

Tony Blair’s Old Band Record Anti-War Song

Published Thursday, 1st March, 2007

Ugly Rumours – that’s the band Tony Blair once belonged to – have now reformed and have their sights on the charts with an anti-war song directed straight at the Prime Minister.

The original members have come together (complete with a Tony Blair lookalike it seems) to record a cover version of the Edwin Starr song, War (What Is It Good For?). The band have also started a new website which explains their decision to release the track.

Anyone wanting to show their support can buy the track for just £1.50 by texting the word PEACE1 to 78789 or by this online link. All profits raised are going to support the work the Stop The War Coalition do.

According to their site, Ugly Rumours only need 5000 sales to break into the charts.

I think the country is trying to tell them something.

This has got to be the end this time.

Hasn’t it?

UPDATE: Bleh, shouldn’t post on the fly late at night – have corrected the more sloppy errors.

Latest from early morning news is that Goldsmith has put out a statement saying that he sought the injunction in the public interest at the behest of the Metropolitan police.

Whatever.

The effect is the same, a closed circle deciding that we ordinary mugs are not fit to know what criminality is happening at the upper reaches of the gpvernment we pay for. “They’re all just covering up for each other” – that’s the message the electorate will take from this latest Goldsmith manoeuvre, not prosecutorial fairhandedness. At this point even otherwise perfectly legally valid considerations of whether news reports might wreck a pending prosecution or skew any subsequent hearing seem rather irrelevant to us voters as the tide rises around Blair and his sofa government’s necks. We know he and they’re corrupt, we want them gone and we just wish the media would just do their bloody job and defy the injunction.

DOUBLE UPDATE: The BBC have banned the Ugly Rumours single. Way to go, beeb.

75 Grand? That’s Almost Enough To Buy A Title

Published on February 28, 2007

Thisislondon:

Cash for peerages’ suspects will walk away with £75,000 payoffs25.02.07

The Downing Street ‘suspects’ at the heart of the police inquiry into cash-for-honours will walk away with pay-offs worth up to £75,000 when Tony Blair steps down.

The Prime Minister’s inner circle of aides – including chief of staff Jonathan Powell and director of government relations Ruth Turner – are entitled to a share in the expected £1.2million ‘golden goodbyes’ which will be handed out to officials in the coming months.

Around 40 Blairite spin doctors and fixers will leave their government posts when Gordon Brown moves into Number Ten.

The Chancellor is expected to bring in his own team of advisers if he wins the Labour leadership and will want to ‘cull’ aides who he regards as Blair loyalists.

But under civil service rules, the aides will be entitled to up to six months salary.

One Whitehall official told the Mail on Sunday: “These special advisers have known for some time they will be without a job. Most have lined up others, but are waiting for their redundancy cheques.”

Mr Powell, who has been quizzed by police investigating claims that Labour ‘sold’ honours to wealthy businessmen in return for loans, is believed to earn £150,000 a year and is expected to pocket around £75,000 before tax.

Miss Turner, arrested by police on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, will also be eligible for a generous cheque. Mr Blair’s political secretary John McTernan is also likely to get a pay-off.

Angus MacNeil, the Scottish nationalist MP who sparked the police probe, last night critics the hand outs. He said: “They are grotesque. There seems to be one rule for Number Ten and another for ordinary workers.”

Oh, Just Piss Off, UK Tells Blair

Published on February 4, 2007

Stop The War 2002

What’s it going to take for Blair to get the message? 2 million voters demonstrating on the streets of London? A million signatures on a petition that he resign? A poll telling him the whole country wants him gone? What?

Most Britons want Blair to resign now -poll
Sun Feb 4, 2007 8:10 AM GMT
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LONDON (Reuters) – Most Britons think Prime Minister Tony Blair should step down now, according to an opinion poll published on Sunday after a week of damaging headlines for the premier over an investigation into political funding.

Blair, who plans to resign later this year after more than a decade in power, was questioned by police for a second time last month about the case which has also seen some of his closest aides arrested.

Blair said in a speech to activists from his Labour Party on Saturday that he did not underestimate the scale of the problems facing his government. But he has said the cash-for-peerages probe will not force him to bring forward his departure date.

The ICM poll published in the Sunday Express found 56 percent of those polled believed Blair should resign now. Even among those who termed themselves as Labour voters, 43 percent said Blair should leave his post immediately.

No, he’s going to hang on for grim death, fingernails gripping the doorjamb of No 10 all the way as he’s dragged out by a posse of stout police constables, accompanied by hordes of baying journos and Cherie scuttling furtively away behind the scrum with the silver in a recyclable Tesco carrier bag .

Meanwhile Blair’s arselicker-in-chief and very own Comical Ali, Philip Gould, will still be valiantly proclaiming to all and sundry how remarkable Blair is and what integrity he’s got and that we should look to history and think how very lucky we are to have such a man as our leader, no really, it’s true.