backscratching and hove
Some interesting information in amongst yesterday's oh-so-predictable report that - guess what - a major donation of £50,000 was made to the Labour party earlier this year by Peter Coates, a major player (geddit) in the gaming industry and someone who is - presumably - not too disappointed with recent Labour party policy on the gambling industry, although I shall, for the sake of fairness, allow the other side of the story to be heard.
"A Labour spokesman said: "Peter Coates is a regular donor to the Labour party so there is nothing out of the ordinary about this donation, which is clearly made because Mr Coates is a supporter of the Labour party and for no other reason. Mr Coates has never sought to influence policy as a result of any donation nor, as far as we are aware, has he met any minister or political adviser in connection with the gambling bill, and nor is there any suggestion that.." oh fuck it, you get the picture. Whatever you say.
Anyway, what I meant to talk about was the following paragraph in the Guardian story.
"The list of donors also suggests a reason why Ivor Caplin, the junior defence minister, has decided not to fight his marginal seat of Hove. The former Tory MP for Hove and ex-minister Sir Tim Sainsbury has given the local Tories £15,000 to campaign against him."
So have Labour got any hope at all in Hove?
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4 comments:
I'll chip in 15p for the Vote Bedsit Bomber campaign.
What is his business, incidentally? His background was in marketing, no?
It's been a while since I was an election agent so I can't remember what the law is around how much you can spend on a local campaign, but from memory it was less than £15,000 so the Tory agent will have to be very careful if s/he doesn't want to face investigation by the police.
In fact I've just looked it up and the amount that a candidate can spend is £5,483 + 4.6p per elector.
Andrew
www.20six.co.uk/Cllr_Andrew_Brown
Well, I for one would be very sorry indeed if the conservative election agent in question were to endure the drama of a police investigation. That would truly be a great shame :-)
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