Friday, February 5, 2010

Cash For Editorials

You gotta love the brass neck of Das Herald Sturmer. In it's attempt to distract attention from its corrupt master The Labour Party, it tries to throw slime on everyone else.

In today's editorial you find this headline:

Auctioned lunches are against the rules

This is a reference to Alex Salmond having lunch in the Scottish Parliament with the organisation Asians for Independence. The lunch was indeed auctioned as a way of raising cash for the SNP group to campaign in the forthcoming elections. However the auction didn't take place in the Parliament and Salmond paid for the lunch himself. Das Herald Sturmer argues that the SNP seem hypocritical because they complained about Wendy Alexander whose behaviour was argued to be illegal, the cash for peerages row which was industrial scale sleeze and the 'cash for access' row.

Cash for access was an industry. People like Derek Draper offered clients the ability to change government policy in return for fees. He was part of the 'inner circle' which included all of Downing street whereby commercial interests could not only get access to Tony and Gordon but could get to know about government announcements in advance. This advance knowledge could make companies hundreds of millions in The City. Power stations were handed over to those who paid for access to the inner-circle and environmental issues were stamped on when a client's need arose. Blair took us to war for special interests after all and got his 2.5 million quid a year consultancy with JP Morgan in return for it.

And here we have Das Herald Sturmer comparing Salmond to that geo-political, war-mongering maniac? For having lunch to raise money for political campaigning?

In drawing these comparisons it is obvious that those self-same corporate interests who have influence over Labour government policy also get their pound of flesh in Labour's favourite Scottish propaganda rag!

Cash for editorials?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Easily I agree but I about the post should have more info then it has.

Alex Porter said...

Have a look at this by Greg Palast who was the investigative journo behind LobbyGate:

http://www.gregpalast.com/tony-blair-and-the-sale-of-britain/

Bob said...

I read the pdf on MPs' functions and events at Westminster . Hundreds of pages of functions and parties hosted by MPs' using all the facilities to entertain future employers and common interest groups. Yeo made £80K from one function he hosted.
So Salmond hasn't done much really. The auction is a bit seedy though.
See it here...
http://mrmxyzptlkaa.blogspot.com/

I've never felt comfortable with the SNP sidling up to the muslim vote. Especially since the Scottish Islamic Foundation scandal ( £125K taxpayers money clawed back due to no show of Islamfest - total payments £1.25m)

On a wider note have you seen this video Alex ?
Confessions of an Economic Hitman. It puts everyting into perspective. If Saddam had just co operated he could have stayed in power and had as many WMD's and missiles etc as he wanted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8&feature=player_embedded

Alex Porter said...

Cheers Bob,
I've posted it. I've heard about the book and was dying to get more info so many thanks for this!

Anonymous said...

Thanks respecting sharing. Like on all occasions, on the well-to-do and strategic on quarry!