Cash for 'Honours', it looks like it's over no-one to be charged

Well after months of fuss and great tax-payers expense it look like the whole charade is drawing to a formal close and no-one will be charged with anything.

Imagine my surprise, a politically motivated action falls to pieces as a spineless Police and Judiciary bend over backwards (regardless of cost) to be seen following this to the nth degree and throwing all common sense out the window.

This was never going to result in anything else, the fact that political parties can legally nominate people for 'political services' rendered the whole thing a waste of time, effort and money to simply appease the (obviously) politically motivated peanut galley.
It was nothing more than a lame kite-flying exercise to try and score some political points, it has failed miserably and has only resulted in swallowing public monies which could have been put to better and more productive use.

No-one is to face charges after the 16-month cash-for-honours investigation, the BBC understands.
Four people were arrested - including two of Tony Blair's aides - during inquiries into whether honours were sold and whether a cover-up followed.

Police interviewed 136 people, including ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Tory leader Michael Howard.

All denied wrongdoing, but friends of Mr Blair say the investigation helped weaken his authority.

news.bbc.co.uk...


[edit on 25-7-2007 by sminkeypinkey]

All of which I agree with sminkey but it doesn't alter the fact that honours of almost all denominations, including those peerages which give access to the House of Lords and, therefore, political power, have been bought and sold for hundreds of years.

What is problematic is that in order to prove what is happening you have to demonstrate the motivation behind an action rather than the substance of the act.

The only hope we can cling to is that the opportunity for such corruption will be taken away as afar as is possible by completion of HoL reform and reform of political party funding.

A more radical solution would be also to throw our anachronistic honours system into the dustbin of history where it belongs and replace it with something much more simple and inclusive such as a single "Hero of the United Kingdom" (for want of a better title), type of award which would honour the services of the 50 years service as a lollipop lady equally alongside the overpaid celebrity and philanthropic multi millionaire.







[edit on 20-7-2007 by timeless test]

I appreciate your point there tt and I'm all for a review and some open & sensible rules regarding party political funding here; but that is surely a slightly different debate to this?

IMO we're very fortunate in the UK to suffer little if any actual and real 'corruption' by any realistic & comparable standard or definition of the term.

Yes, you're right of course, in comparison to certain banana republics we are fortunate indeed.

My point about party funding is simply that if we take away the need or ability to fund from outside sources then we should also take away the opportunity to make undue reward as well. Of course, no system is perfect and if some vain idiot is prepared to vast sums for a title then there is little we can do to stop him, hence the auctions of "Lord of the Manor" type titles. What we can do is to stop him from gaining direct political power as a result.

The worrying thing is that after I posted the comments above Ming Campbell said almost exactly the same thing on the radio. I'm not sure if I should be more worried about Ming pinching his speeches from here or me turning into a geriatric Lib Dem.

Anyway, my copy of Alastair Campbell's diaries arrived this morning so we'll see if he touches on the subject - not very likely I'm afraid...



[edit on 20-7-2007 by timeless test]

Well as I said tt a debate on the funding of political parties is fine but that was never the point of this enquiry.

I heard some interesting conversation & explainations on BBC Radio 4 tonight.
If a prospective donor gives money in the hope of gaining an 'honour' then that is not illegal.
If a party gives a donor an 'honour' simply because someone has donated money to that party then that too is not illegal.

The only thing in the arrangement that constitutes illegality is - in the words of the CPS -

"For a case to proceed, the prosecution must have a realistic prospect of being able to prove that the two people agreed that the gift, etc, was in exchange for an honour."

news.bbc.co.uk...

How the hell anyone ever imagined they would be able to gain a conviction on something so pointless IMO simply defies imagination.

Why would anyone make an explicit and illegal 'deal' when it's perfectly legal to nominate donors for 'honours' solely on the basis of them being donors to political parties?

This has been nothing but a grotesque waste of public funds IMO.

People can slam politicians and/or political parties all they like but this case has not been about a debate over the way we fund political parties; it was about pursuing - at great public expense - a pointless case which never stood a chance of gathering a single conviction in a million years.

Frankly I expect to see one or two heads roll at the Met over this.

Lets not take this too far out of context. There are many police investigations that lead to no one being charged.

Of course, this was a high profile investigation. Never has a serving prime minister been formally questioned.

Will we ever know what, if any evidence was uncovered. And as it is unlikely that the file will be put in the public domain, I guess we can continue to speculate on the pressure from Government on the investigation.

Could they ever have charged anyone?

Originally posted by Freedom ERP
Lets not take this too far out of context. There are many police investigations that lead to no one being charged.

- That's a fair and reasonable comment there Freedom ERP......but then this was never just a mundane or ordinary Police enquiry.

There were the innumerable leaks to the press (which must have come from briefings from the Police themselves) as well as conduct such as the wholly unnecessary & OTT dawn raids (which funnily enough happened with the media in tow too).

It's utterly outrageous.

Imagine what the tory press would have said had it been William Hague arrested after being raided at 5.30am for the whole Michael Ashcroft scandal - something far more dubious that anything claimed in the rest of this little tale.

Then there is the huge wad of public money flushed down the lav.

Originally posted by Freedom ERP
Of course, this was a high profile investigation. Never has a serving prime minister been formally questioned.

Wasn't David Lloyd-George questioned by police over selling honours? Or was it informal questioning?

By the way, sminkey, the title of the thread should be cash for honours, not cash for questions - that was a Tory scandal back in the 1990s

Yes, he was interviewed although not, I believe, by police.

It was that incident which gave rise to the current legislation.

What a waste of time. They could've spent that money on something worth investigating. If you have no proof of cash being swapped for a peerage, then everyone will just deny it.

HEY, This is my first post for ages. =p HI!

Originally posted by Ste2652
By the way, sminkey, the title of the thread should be cash for honours, not cash for questions - that was a Tory scandal back in the 1990s

- LMAO.

Old habits eh?

Originally posted by MacDonagh
HEY, This is my first post for ages

- Welcome back MacDonagh.

[edit on 25-7-2007 by sminkeypinkey]