AN ETHICAL FUNDING POLICY?

First, the good news.The Labour Party is beginning to drag itself out of the financial mire incurred as a result of the dodgy loan deals struck during the last election. According to the Electoral Commission, Labour raised more than £5 million in the final three months of Tony Blair's premiership, declaring new donations of £5,033,964 in the three months to June 30.
Now the bad news. Labour still has debts of £20.2 million ( so all this talk of snap elections is silly season flim-flam) . And the list of donors is, to say the least of it, dubious.
It includes Iranian-born industrialist Mahmoud Khayami, who fled to Britain in 1979 following the fall of the Shah, donating £500,000. Even more questionable is the £250,000 each from venture capitalist and leading Gordon Brown backer Sir Ronald Cohen, City financier John Aisbitt and Nigel Doughty, who is thought to be the chairman of the private equity firm Doughty Hanson & Co. That's right. The smae private equity companies condemned by the unions and left MPs and currently asset-stripping right across the globe. I'm with Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson , who says "Robin Cook famously declared that Labour would have an ethical foreign policy. At this stage, it would be nice to have an ethical funding policy."
PS: Maybe Gordon can use some of the money to pay back Manchester City Council the £238,000 cost to council tax payers of the supercasino bid. I was never a fan of the project, but it seems only fair that council tax payers should not have to pick up the tabfor Blairand Brown's policy whims.....