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Catz Club - the real issue

The link is to the report on the Charities Commission website about the repayment of the Catz Club's £15,000.

Much less money that Bernie Ecclestone's "loan" of £1m.

From the report:
Findings
The Charity confirmed that it had issued a cheque for a general donation of £7,500 to the Labour Party. However, it explained that ‘the payment to the Labour Party was an administrative error’. The Charity had contacted the Labour Party who had agreed to reimburse the Charity’s donation. The Charity advised that the donation should have been made by the trading subsidiary, Catz Club Services Limited (“the trading subsidiary”).

Our enquiries identified that Catz Club Services Limited was the Charity’s trading subsidiary company. The Commission made clear to the Charity that as the trading subsidiary was a charitable asset owned by the Charity, it was therefore not permissible for the trading subsidiary to make a donation to the Labour Party either.

The Charity advised that in total £15,000 had been paid to the Labour Party, £7,500 of which was a general donation to the Party and separately £7,500 to attend a Labour Party event where the charity engaged with and lobbied senior politicians to encourage increased funding for after school childcare facilities. The Charity explained that they were also engaging and arranging to attend meetings and events with senior Conservative Party Members for similar purposes, although to date it had only done so through one to one meetings.


So basically they paid the money as part of persuading Labour "to encourage increased funding for after school childcare facilities".

Let us not dispute the merits of having more after school facilities. However, a system of lobbying whereby a party gets an argument for a particular policy accompanied by a bung links policy to payment. "Cash for policies".

With Bernie Ecclestone he did get delivery on his objective and probably would have had a return even if the "loan" was a "donation" (as was originally intended).

Still it does show how money is used to get access to the Labour Party.

Comments

PoliticalHackUK said…
Michael 'Catch Me If You Can' Brown. £2.4 million.

How much has been repaid?
John Hemming said…
The money was not paid to obtain the opportunity of talking to the party.

I even talk to members of the Labour Party for free.

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