It took many years to overcome this treachery but by 1945 the Labour Party was able to win control again. Clement Atlee was also fairly incorruptible but fellow leaders of the party were willing to accept the money of the CIA via Tom Braden and the International Organizations Division to move to the right. This created internal division in the Labour government was by 1951 it had lost its majority.
Harold Wilson was the next Labour prime minister. We now know that MI5 and the CIA began a long drawn out campaign to undermine his government. Edward Heath suffered from the same forces as he was considered by the establishment to be far too left wing. James Callaghan and Denis Healey (one of the original targets of CIA money in the late 1940s) successfully moved Labour to the right after Wilson was finally removed in 1976. Callaghan and Healey introduced monetarism that was developed by Margaret Thatcher’s period in office.
In 1986, the newly elected Tony Blair took a “freebie” tour of the United States. At the time he was a member of CND. While in Washington he announced he had changed his mind and that that the “visit had persuaded him of the value of nuclear weapons”. The intelligence services always prefer their placements to have been a former “left-winger” because they rarely move back again after they have been “converted”.
In March, 1994, Blair was introduced to Michael Levy at a dinner party at the Israeli embassy in London. Levy was a retired businessman who now spent his time raising money for Jewish pressure-groups. After this meeting, Levy acquired a new job, raising money for Tony Blair. According to Robin Ramsay (The Rise of New Labour, page 64), Levy raised over £7 million for Blair).
In an article by John Lloyd published in the New Statesman on 27th February, 1998, the main suppliers of this money included Sir Emmanuel Kaye (Kaye Enterprises), Sir Trevor Chin (Lex Garages), Maurice Hatter (IMO Precision Group) and Maurice Hatter (Sage Software).
In April, 1994, John Smith died and Blair won the leadership contest. With Levy’s money, Blair appointed Jonathan Powell as his Chief of Staff. A retired diplomat, Powell was not a member of the Labour Party. In fact, his brother, Charles Powell, was Margaret Thatcher's right hand man.
Alastair Campbell was the other man brought into his private office with Levy’s money. Powell and Campbell were later to become key figures in the later invasion of Iraq. It is of course a pure coincidence that this decision reflected the thinking of Israel’s government.
Another important figure in the "corruption" of Tony Blair was the media baron, Rupert Murdoch. It was widely believed that Labour Party lost the 1992 General Election because of the anti-Labour campaigns of Murdock’s newspapers.
In 1995 Tony Blair flew to Australia to “pledge his allegiance at a meeting of News International’s executives… an extraordinary act of fealty”. (Peter Oborne, Alastair Campbell: New Labour and the Rise of the Media Class” page 141)
As a result of this meeting Murdoch’s papers were, at worst, neutral towards Labour. Alastair Campbell began writing articles to go under Blair’s name in the Murdoch papers. (Robin Ramsay, The Rise of New Labour, page 67)
It was later announced that Blair had signed a book contract with Harper Collins (a company owned by Rupert Murdoch). The deal was worth £3.5 million to Blair. This information only came out when Blair used the contract as security when he purchased his house in London. Margaret Thatcher and John Major got similar book deals with Harper Collins. Of course, the royalties near reach the multi-million advances paid for them. However, it is a great way of bribing a prime minister.
To create “New Labour”, Blair had to start removing the links with the trade union movement. Traditionally, the trade unions had been the main providers of money to the Labour Party. However, if Blair was going to this he had to find other financial backers. This became Sir Michael Levy’s job. However, the problem with obtaining large donations is that they always expect something back in return. Businessmen have always seen donations to political parties as an “investment”. Recently, there has been much speculation about this money being used to buy “honours”.
For example, all but one of Labour’s top donors who have given over £1m has received a peerage. The exception is Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate. He was rewarded in other ways - the Romanian steel contract. This is the reality of large political donations. The granting of honours is just a sideshow. It is the granting of other political favours that is the real scandal.
For example, soon after he was elected as prime minister, Blair announced that sport was being exempted from the ban on tobacco advertising. Everyone was surprised by this broken election promise until it was revealed that Bernie Ecclestone had given the Labour Party £1 million a few weeks previously.
Another example of Blair’s "corruption" concerns his relationship with the businessman, Paul Drayson. Blair had a meeting with Drayson on 6th December, 2001. Soon afterwards two things happened: (1) Drayson donated £100,000 to the Labour Party; (2) Drayson’s company, PowerJect, won a £32 million contract to produce a smallpox vaccine. The most surprising aspect of this contract was that it was not put out to open tender. If it had of been the contract would have gone to a German-Danish company called Bavarian Nordic. It is this company that Drayson has purchased the smallpox vaccine from. It is believed that Drayson paid Bavarian Nordic £12m for the vaccine. In other words his £100,000 investment has resulted in a £20m profit. In all, Drayson has given £1.1m to New Labour. This was a good deal for Drayson, he was also given a peerage as a result of this donation.
Another company that has a strange relationship with Blair is Jarvis Engineering. The chairman of this company is Steven Norris. He was formerly a Conservative MP and served as Minister of Transport (1992-1996). However, he decided to leave the House of Commons to become chairman of Jarvis Engineering. Although still a member of the Conservative Party, Norris decided it would be a good idea to make large donations of money to the Labour Party.
This was followed by a change of Labour Party policy. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had in opposition been strong opponents of the Public Finance Initiative (PFI). A scheme brought in by the Conservative government that enabled private companies to obtain government contracts to provide public sector services. Jarvis Engineering had done extremely well out of this scheme. Blair and Brown decided that this scheme was now a good one. It was not very surprising that Jarvis Engineering soon began winning PFI contracts given out by the Labour Government. Jarvis was not the only company that found it very beneficial to give money to “New Labour”. History shows that it seems a very good way to get PFI contracts.
When Tony Blair was elected he promised to reform the House of Lords in order to make it acceptable in a democratic society. However, he has failed to do this and Robin Cook disclosed in his diaries that Blair was never keen to reform the second chamber. The reasons are clear. Selecting who should be in the House of Lords gives tremendous power to the prime minister. It is also a source of income as Blair has been selling honours for the last nine years.
Giving money to New Labour is good business. In 2001 Richard Desmond gave £100,000 to New Labour. Within days the DTI gave permission for Desmond to buy Express newspapers for £125m. Afterwards he admitted it was a good deal as New Labour spent £114,000 advertising in his newspapers “so I actually made money on the deal.”
Over the last five years, 17 out of the 22 donors who have donated more than £100,000 have been given some kind of honour.
The publicity over links between donations, honours, and government contracts (PFI was always going to lead to government "corruption") has resulted in Blair developing a new tactic. This involves businessmen in providing loans rather than gifts. Loans do not have to be declared. The idea is that several years after the contract has been given or the honour awarded, the loan is turned into a gift.
Chai Patel (1.5m), Sir David Garrard (1m) and Barry Townsley (1m) all gave this money to Lord Levy (Blair’s bagman). It has now been revealed that over £14 million in loans was raised by Levy before the 2005 election. As a businessman myself, I find it difficult to understand why Labour has been willing to sell honours in exchange for loans. How are they ever going to be paid back? Since 1997 the membership of the Labour Party has fallen by over 50%. Trade union contributions to the party have also nearly dried up. Therefore, the only way they will be able to pay this money back is by raising this money in donations. It is financial madness? Or is it? Remember, leading Labour Party officials are claiming that they knew nothing about these loans. Is it possible that some members of the party have received money for arranging these loan deals? The Labour Party is in danger of going bankrupt. One of the reasons the Labour Party sought out these loans is that its bankers refused to provide the necessary overdraft to fight the election.
Even this is not the great scandal waiting to be exposed. This involves the relationship between Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell, Alastair Campbell, Michael Levy, Rubert Murdoch, etc. and the funding of the Labour Party and the Iraq War. Is it possible that some of these loans came from companies who have benefited from the Iraq War? This is of course what has happened in the United States (Halliburton & Bechtel). Is this the reason that Tony Blair is reluctant to reveal who gave such large loans in 2005?
We now know that Lyndon Johnson manipulated Congress in order to start the Vietnam War. We also know that the greatest beneficiaries of the war was three companies based in Texas, Brown & Root, General Dynamics and Bell Corporation. All three companies had been long-term financial backers of LBJ. Will we find out the same thing about Blair and his backers? The fact that the man who arranged these loans was Sir Michael Levy.
Tony Blair released the list (2006) of the businessmen who provided the loans.
Rod Aldridge - £1m
Richard Caring - £2m
Gordon Crawford - £500,000
Prof Sir Christopher Evans - £1m
Nigel Morris - £1m
Sir Gulam Noon - £250,000
Dr Chai Patel - £1.5m
Andrew Rosenfeld - £1m
Lord David Sainsbury - £2m
Barry Townsley - £1m
Derek Tullett - £400,000
Total: £13,950,000
The list includes some interesting names.
Andrew Rosenfeld established the Minerva property group with Sir David Garrard in 1996. Rosenfeld stake is worth £49m. He has £30m in other assets. Garrard is also a major supplier of cash to Tony Blair. There is no evidence that they are socialists. However, they do depend on the government to give planning permission for their various property ventures. For example, in January the government gave permission for them to build Minerva Building, a 217-metre office tower in London. Just a coincidence of course, I am sure the reason they supported the government because they wanted Blair to increase the minimum wage.
Rod Aldridge is Chief Executive of Capita. He has been called the 'privatisation tycoon'. Capita has a 10-year, £400 million contract to run the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB). This was the agency that failed to provide adequate security checks for staff working with children and the elderly. Capita also runs seven contracts out of the Darlington office that used to be the Teachers' Pension Bureau. Another contract given to Capita was the London Congestion Charging scheme. Aldridge has a £44m stake in the Capita Group. Other assets add £8m to his wealth. Aldridge's wealth is based on obtaining PFI contracts. However, he probably gives money to Blair because he supports Labour's war on poverty.
I consider "corruption" is the most important factor in this story. I believe if we had a truly democratic system we would now be living in a harmonious egalitarian society. The main reason that we do not have such a society is that the system has always allowed the rich to corrupt our politicians. The same thing has happened all over the world. The only way it is going to stop is if this "corruption" is fully exposed. The media is part of this corrupt system and is therefore reluctant to expose it . The most dangerous aspect of this corrupt political system concerns the large profits made by the arms manufacturers. Not only does this "corruption" cause the deaths of millions of people, it poses a threat to the survival of the planet.
Richard Aldridge, the chairman of Capita, has so far made over £1bn from government contracts.
Sir Christopher Evans, the head of a bioscience firm, is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Derek Tullett, is a director of an online betting exchange with an interest in government plans for super-casinos.
Until Tony Blair came to power Capita was a little-known IT firm with a £112 million turnover relying heavily on contracts with local authorities. This included Brighton Council. The council leader, Steve Bassam, was given a peerage by Blair soon after he was elected in 1997. The following year Lord Bassam joined Capita as a consultant.
This was a shrewd move as Bassam introduced Aldridge to Blair. Aldridge, who went to school in Brighton, got on very well with Blair and soon began donating money to New Labour (he had been a supporter of the Conservative Party before 1997).
Over the last ten years Aldridge has won contracts to administer the following:
Supplying BBC licences (£500m)
Child Trusts Funds (£430m)
Criminal Records Bureau (£400m)
London Congestion Charge Scheme (£280m)
Department of Education Literacy and Numeracy Strategies (£177m)
Miners’ Liability Claims (£145m)
Online Services for Department of Work and Pensions (£118m)
Connexions Discount Card (£100m)
BBC jobs in Northern Ireland (£100m)
Department of Work and Pensions Records Management (£70m)
Teachers’ Pensions (£62m)
Individual Learning Account Scheme (£55m)
Department of Education Maintenance Allowance (£49m)
TFL Congestion Charge Scheme (£31m)
Driving Standards Agency (£22m)
Healthcare for Civil Servants (£12m)
Management Support for LEAs (£0.4m)
Recruitment for Customs and Excise (£0.3m)
Despite being fined for a string of high-profile blunders, Capita (nicknamed Crapita) has been chosen to provide virtually every public sector contract it bids for.
In return Aldridge has given £2m to support City Academies and given a £1m loan to New Labour (he is now demanding it back because he has not been given a peerage).
That is not bad for a man who has obtained £2.6bn in government contracts and has a personal fortune of £73m
link
[+/-] show/hide this post
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home