Labour crackdown pledge after MP lobbying cash claims

[dipsydoodle]

Labour has promised to introduce stricter rules for lobbyists following claims three former cabinet ministers had offered their services for money.

Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon have denied any wrongdoing after they were secretly recorded for a Channel 4 documentary.

Labour said the claims showed there was a need for more "transparency" in the lobbying system.

The Conservatives have also promised tougher controls on lobbyists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8578597.stm

[dipsydoodle]

1. Headline changed to :

Alistair Darling attacks ex-ministers in lobbying row.

Chancellor Alistair Darling has attacked three ex-Cabinet colleagues who were filmed apparently offering to influence government policy for cash.

Speaking about the claims on BBC One's Andrew Marr show, he asked: "What on earth did they think they were doing?"

He said the government should bring in a "statutory-backed code of conduct to deal with former ministers".

[LeftishBrit]

2. What did they think they were doing?

Imitating their colleagues across the pond, no doubt. That seems to be one of the main ways that politics works there; and most of it is legal. Not that I want legal bribery to become the norm here too!

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. And imitating the Great Helmsman Blair

who has made millions after hightailing it out of parliament (and not accepting a peerage - perhaps because that would have meant declaring his interests in too much public detail?).

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair received cash from a Korean oil firm run by a former bribery convict for advice on Iraq's oil-rich Kurdistan, according to news reports.

It had been kept secret for nearly 20 months before it was revealed last week.

Blair, who has been accused of cashing in on his former premiership through a number of consultancy deals, was found to have offered consulting in August 2008 to a consortium of investors led by UI Energy Corporation.
...
The Korean firm is headed by Choi Kyu-sun, who was convicted in 2003 in a high-profile corruption scandal involving potential bidders wanting to run a national sports lottery and a son of then-President Kim Dae-jung.

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2010/03/22/201003220046.asp

[T_i_B]

4. Sunday Times links

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7068820.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7069795.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7069877.ece

And there's Dispatches tonight as well.

[Hopeless Romantic]

5. It would have been worse with the Tories

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Labour suspends three ex-ministers over lobbying claims

Three ex-cabinet ministers have been suspended from the parliamentary Labour party over claims they were prepared to influence policy for cash.

Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon were suspended following reports in the Sunday Times and a Channel 4 Dispatches programme.

All three deny any wrongdoing. Mr Byers has referred himself for a parliamentary standards inquiry.

Gordon Brown has dismissed calls for an inquiry by the top UK civil servant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8582093.stm

[T_i_B]

7. Did anyone else see Dispatches last night?

Oddly enough, the one who annoyed me the most was Margaret "sicknote" Moran.

Hoon and Hewitt have both called for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown's leadership in January so he was probbably quite glad to kick them out.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Yeah, Moran was pretty awful

Though Labour had pretty much washed their hands of her already - they banned her from standing again. But it seems she's basically stopped voting in the Commons, and doing constituency work since then, and saying you're too ill to see constituents, but eagerly meeting with PR firms on how to pick up lobby work is very low.

She probably couldn't believe her luck - any switched-on UK PR firm would know she'd be a liability rather than an asset, and then a US PR firm turns up wanting to talk to her!

On edit: she's been suspended too: http://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/541/Sick-MP-suspended-by-Labour.6172823.jp

[T_i_B]

9. 2 more former ministers implicated

Adam Ingram and Richard Caborn (who I've never liked as a politician in the slightest) are now caught up in this scandal.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7078833.ece

Asked how he could help the firm if he were in the Lords, Caborn replied: “Well, access. Access to people ... You are in the environment, you’re moving around.” This included access to ministers.

He later elaborated on the advantages of the Lords: “All this is all about contacts, it really is. It’s not so much always about influencing, it’s about getting information, and that’s absolutely key because if you can get information that is very powerful.”

Caborn, the former sport and trade minister, is already acting for business. One of his main clients is Amec, the nuclear construction company, which pays him £75,000 a year for 30 days work.

He said if a client was a “big hitter” it could gain access to the highest levels of government. This was true of Amec’s chief executive, Samir Brikho. “If Samir Brikho wants to see the prime minister, Samir Brikho sees the prime minister,” said Caborn. Asked whether this was something he helped to arrange, he said it was.