Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Chris Huhne MP: Will Need to Get Calling 999 ... Again


New Lib DemCross bench peer = generous Lib Dem donor. Not declared to appointments commission. Tut tut. Man who nominated him "forgot" he had done so or that he'd even heard of him when asked by the Times. And nominator continues lobbying activity though a parliamentarian. Breaking party rules. And all good sense.

A generous flourish of my hat to Mr Paul Staines.

UPDATE: It is Lord Khalid Hameed of Hampstead. Elevated February 2007 (the date on the first update link is wrong).

The Lib Dem Treasurer and fellow Lord was not the person who first suggested Hameed. But he was the first supporting signatory. Lot of smoke and mirrors over whether LDs knew he (Hameed) was a donor or closely related to donor companies. The largest single donation came after his peerage. Cross bencher.

UPDATE 2: OK, OK, OK. As I said above this guy is a "cross bencher". But I'll change the original text too.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Which new Lib Dem Peer are you talking about?

Chris Paul said...

Can you not manage to click a link anon? Newish might have been easier for you.

Anonymous said...

Hameed of Hampstead. Matey was not nominator, he was first in list of supporters though.

Ken said...

Chris,

Happy New Year...

I suggest that you lose the PPP box as a matter of urgency. Google can trace you through it and if they find out that you are doing sponsored stuff they will strip away your Page Ranking.

Chris Paul said...

Cheers, and happy new year to you too

Anonymous said...

‘Call 999’ suggests you believe a crime has been committed, have you any evidence? He's not a Lid Dem peer, and he's not a generous donor, a company he is associated with is a donor.

This company has two well-known Lib Dem supporting directors; this is no more of a scandal than a former leader a Labour-affiliated trade union being raised to the peerage.

Ken said...

Chris, I wasn't joking, if that is what you think. The Exile was raking in about 200 quid a month until Uncle Google dropped it from a GPR-4 to a zero. Now I am lucky to make a quarter of that.

As one money blogger to another, stay below the radar if you want to earn money.

Chris Paul said...

Anonymous - call 999 suggests that at least as much of a crime has been committed here as by the planning committee of the Lib Dem Durham City Council that Huhne dobbed in most recently.

Exile - yes I knew you were serious, thanks.

Anonymous said...

Fact: Lord Hameed is a people’s peer not a party appointment.
Fact: Lord Hameed is a director of a company but isn’t a director or owner of the company that gave the donations.
Fact: Lord Hameed is Asian - and that is the reason for this witch-hunt

Chris Paul said...

Anonymous:

Your fact 1: I am fully aware that Lord Hameed is a people's peer. This is itself a source of contention given his associations with Lib Dem supporters and Lib Dem peers.

Your fact 2: Are these various companies compartments of same business? And was the company/ies that gave chosen deliberately to allow the people's peer route?

Your fact 3: Do you think so? Really? Would that have been why Times' asian reporters also went after other funding/honours stories including a completely bogus one including serious defamations about a Mr Khand who is a Labour supporter but not a Peer. Perhaps you're right.

There is far more genuine news value in this story than in the Abrahams planning permission one.

If nothing else the Lib Dem peer who was at the top of the list of supporters denied he'd had any part in the nomination. And the Lib Dem peer on the panel - knowing full well of substantial donations at least close to this man kept schtum. Meanwhile Huhne and others preach.