A comprehensive review of a week in the “Kebabgate” scandal in the Sunday Times.
A point to note:
In the article Sigmund Sternberg is quoted as saying this about David Abrahams:
“I have come across him at various Labour party events. The last time I saw him was at the conference in Bournemouth. I knew him to say hello to. He’s very nice, very personable.”
He certainly had come across him as I revealed earlier this week as he sponsored him for membership of the London Rotary club.
This seems to be the general thought of everyone in an around the Labour Party, They didn’t really know him and they certainly hadn’t talked donations with him.
Labour is well on its way to being thoroughly cooked as it displays hereto unseen depths of complacency and flagrant disregard for the laws of this land which it introduced to make donations to Political Parties more ethical and transparent.
The skewered count in the ongoing Kebabgate is growing currently it stands as follows
Definitely well skewered is Paul Watt, the Labour General Secretary who fell on his own skewer to try and prevent further skewering of his seniors. I discussed him here. His fall from grace may be even greater once Knacker of the Yard has grilled him further.
Again definitely well skewered is Charlie Gordon, erstwhile former Scottish Labour Transport spokesman, He has again become sacrificial meat for the skewer after being thrown to the dogs by his masters. Again he is likely to be the subject to a severe roasting by the police.
Looking well done is Wendy Alexander who after helping with the skewering of her former friend Charlie Gordon is now browning nicely on the skewer as she gets nearer to a proper grilling.
Looking well done as well is Harriet Harman who is being skewered left, right and centre by anyone in the Labour Party, the Clunker has been fanning the flames and increasing the heat and she may shortly be well done. Donations to the Save the Harman fund required.
Looking well singed is Jon Mendlesohn, The Clunkers “ethical” Fundraiser and former partner in the LLM spin merchants business.
Others that are standing by quietly marinating before the grilling begins, include the Clunker himself, Matt Carter and perhaps his predecessor David Triesman, and perhaps Lord Levy himself. Others no doubt will be defrosting as we speak ready to join them in the pot.
No not a song title, just a thought on where all the trouble is coming from in the “Donorgate” scandal that is currently destroying the pitiful remains of the Labour party to many peoples amusement.
All the big problems for the Labour Party are now coming not from the general donations to the party from David Abrahams which are about 650k, but from the donations to the Deputy Leadership campaigns and the attempted donation to the Leadership Campaign fund which total about 10k.
Now I can understand that campaigning for the deputy leadership might cost a couple of bob, but the amounts spent between all the candidates seems to have very significant. Looking at the amount donated to each candidate we see the following rough totals.
Blears 69K, Benn 31K, Cruddas 70K, Hain 77k, Harman 46k, Johnson 53K. These do not include borrowings of Harman (10K at a rate of 14.17%!) and “late” changes such as the 5K to Hain that he forgot to report from Jon Mendelsohn. This brings in a total of 361K.
Now this seems to be an awful lot of money for a fairly simple job, a few leaflets, a web site, and a couple of nice suits, but it seems to have caused some of the candidates a lot of problems and in particular Harriet Harman.
She has struggled to raise money and even had to take out a significant loan at what looks like a penalty rate and received over 30K of the money after the election had been completed, which is perhaps why she seems to have taken the money from David Abrahams via Janet Kidd without doing some simple checks.
And do try and explain to me how Clunker Brown managed to need 196k for his Leadership Campaign fund, there was no need for this money as no-one challenged him.
I assume that all the spare money from these campaigns is added to the general Labour coffers?
P.S. Note that here in Scotland it only costs £950 to cause Leadership woes.
“Gordon Brown has ordered an investigation into the finances of the property developer who gave Labour illegal donations of more than £670,000.”
“Fears are growing within the party that David Abrahams, who hid his identity by using four intermediaries, may himself have been a conduit for another mystery benefactor, after senior Labour figures questioned his personal wealth.”
According to the usual rule of thumb a donor of over £500K is likely to have a fortune of over £50million.
The Telegraph continues
Mr Abrahams is described by friends as a “secretive” person who spends little money on himself but likes to rub shoulders with the great and the good at political and charity events. Last year he was pictured shaking hands with the then Israeli ambassador, Zvi Heifetz, who was questioned then cleared over money-laundering allegations. Mr Heifetz was recently appointed as an adviser to Mr Blair in his role as Middle East peace envoy. Yesterday, a Downing Street source said Labour “had not seen any evidence” to suggest the money was not Mr Abrahams’s. He added: “It would be very serious if it were the case. No one is aware of any such arrangement. It will be part of the inquiry.”
Last night I e-mailed Guido with the above photo discovered via a simple query in Google (David Abrahams Sigmund Sternberg). What more is there to come if even Google can help you out.
I see Sir Sigmund Sternberg sponsored David Abrahams to the Rotary Club in London. Page 7 of the Pdf file has the photo and details.
Sigmund is of course a leading Labour donor and active in fundraising for the Labour Party.
Seems strange that such a leading donor to Labour would sponsor Mr Abrahams to the Rotary Club but wouldn’t have introduced him to his friends in the Labour Party.
Yesterday on PoliticalBetting.com I said “Follow the Money”. Today I read that John Burton, Tony Blair’s former party agent in the North East, where the scandal is centered, questioned how Mr Abrahams could afford the donations.
“I never thought he had that sort of money,”.
Of course once we get up to this sort of level, what’s next!
