There’s a big and very obvious problem with the FT‘s front page story this morning, which the FT perhaps doesn’t need to spell out.
If there is indeed a shadowy Advisory Board which helps fund the Tory party and influences government policy in exchange for big cash gifts, this is quite clearly and obviously deeply corrupt in a way in which the government is too implicated possibly to understand: it’s straightforward purchase of political influence, undocumented, by non-UK taxpayers, entirely extra-parliamentary and apparently unknown to senior figures in the party.
If, on the other hand, it is an Advisory Board which does not give advice, but charges £250,000 under false pretences, then this is also corrupt, although perhaps less so.
They don’t say it, but the Augean Stables springs to mind.
It’s well worth £4 for a copy.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 