Will the latest scandal, dubbed ‘dinner-doners' by the alliteration loving press, give the Government another bout of political indigestion? It would appear that Conservative Party Co-Treasurer, Peter Cruddas, has dropped the party in the soup by offering access to the Prime Minister and Chancellor in return for a hefty fee.
Caught on tape speaking to undercover reporters, Mr Cuddas said "….. within that room everything is confidential - you can ask him practically any question you want. If you're unhappy about something, we will listen to chicago cubs grey road jersey you and put it into the policy committee at number 10 - we feed all feedback to the policy committee."
Scandal after scandal has involved politicians of all parties in recent years, so there is a depressing sense of déjà vu about this. Although legislation has been enacted to ensure greater transparency in political party funding, the UK does not have a ceiling on donations to political parties. Between 2001-2010, ￡423m was donated to political parties. Around ￡250m was from single donations of more than ￡100,000 made by unions, business or individuals. This has the effect that a small number of organisations or individuals might be able to buy influence or position.
While the Conservative Party is saying that no donation has actually been made, one wonders if offences under The Bribery Act 2010 may be triggered, at least for
Hospitality is not prohibited by the Act, although as ever, it will be a question of fact in the circumstances. We know there's no such thing as a free lunch, but ￡250k for beans on toast with the PM is a bit steep and falls well outside most usual business activity. Under The Bribery Act commercial organisations can be guilty of an offence if they fail to prevent persons associated with them from bribing another person on their behalf. In order to establish a defence, the organisation would have to prove it has adequate procedures in place to prevent persons associated with it from bribing.
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