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Plaid Cymru: Are These Boyos in Glass Houses?
Thanks to blogger GW for drawing attention to this Conduct Report: PDF download or online. It concerns Plaid leader Elfyn Llwyd who has not been slow in coming forward on the Hain case, Plaid's Adam Price who was accomplice to Angus MacNeill om police time-wasting who famously likes to play with fire, and Plaid's Hywel Williams singled out for particularly taking the piss on logo size.
They were all carpeted for spending their Communications' Allowances on heavily branded and simultaeneous press advertisements costing around £20,000 and forming I think six full pages of the South Wales Guardian. Shortly before the Welsh Assembly elections.
This trio of famous freedom fighters were forced to repay the money. And their successful attempts to get approval were slammed as being disingenuous. Which could of course be a precedent for slamming George Osborne's supposed off-the-hook email and the process round that - 11 months after the fact, and with an unsuitable question - as similarly unacceptable.
Very interesting indeed that the committee in effect asked the Commissioner for Standards to look at the relationship of so-called "Parliamentary Reports" with the campaigning period. As regular readers will realise the production of such documents by Cllr John Leech MP has clearly been related to election activity in both 2006 and 2007. Just before the formal election period perhaps, but clearly campaigning using tax payers' rather than party monies.
The PDF version of the document includes a copy of each advert in English and Welsh. One of each here for your delectation. Click to enlarge.
ASIDE: It may just be a misprunt of course - with even grocers' apostrophes appearing in the BBC News 24 captions of late - but the Hain story ticker is now saying: "More than £109,000" rather than "More than £103,000".
UPDATE 16:36: There is a great wazzock name of Angus Robertson from the Scottish National Party pontificating and claiming that his own party is immune. I feel a little googling activity coming on on that particular can of worms.
6 comments:
Glass Houses ?
Surley a case of
the Kettle calling the Sospan Bach !
OK I promise no further bilingual punes !
Most excellent GW. Where is your blog btw?
Google away. Do, however, let me know if you find any honours sold for cash; compulsory purchases of land in the east end of Glasgow belonging to Labour donors, which just happen to take place at well above the market price; donations from non-domiciled property directors to Labour leadership campaigns with only one candidate; or the laundering of donations worth several hundred thousand pounds so as to hide the true identity of the benefactor. Be sure and do that for me, won't you?
Thanks Frank
Not sure the SNP have the gift of many honours really. Which makes it hard to sell them or more to the point to be accused of selling them.
CPOs in Glasgow I know nothing about except that land price depends on various things one of which is location, one of which is zoning, one of which is covenants, one of which is development control.
Land values in Manchester are X as car park, Y as sites with FPP for low rise housing, and Z with FPP for a Tower. With OPP or suitable zoning the values are a bit lower of course because of the risk.
But there really is no such things as a (singular) market price. It was Ming Campbell I think who suggested councils should refuse PP and then buy land and give themselves PP and sell on.
Don't know what you mean on the non-domiciled etc.
Abrahams obviously - a bit of a roller coaster ride with that one.
But the test will not be whether SNP have committed the huge sins available to larger parties but whether the essential ethics are such that lobbing stones at anyone else is a sensible exercise.
The smaller parties are in the best position to spout on this stuff. But that great wazzock put up to knee jerk today could well live to regret his hubris in my opinion.
We'll see won't we.
The problem with "buying" an Honour off the SNP is that no sober doner would trust the SNP to deliver onthe promises.
Actually the Lothian question is is any SNP MP sober enuf to attend and vote ?
Ouch! Are they not all pioneers, committed to sobriety for life?
Unlike that David Hennigan - Paul Rowen's assistant in Rochdale and vodka king - on whom I have just received some tremendous human interest stories as the Rochdale Lib Dem dream sadly falls in ruins.
Keep 'em coming!
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