http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17503116

Erm, that's been Tory policy for years now, the only difference is this time it was filmed. Now who was it who said lobbying was the next big scandal?

I'm sure Murdoch's having a right chuckle...

It's like something out of Yes, Minister isn't it? I'd love for the press to show how long this has been going on for and just how involved Cameron himself is, but I doubt it'll happen.

If they weren't so retarded they would have thought about toning things down a bit after the Fergie business.

FFS stop being so bloody corrupt and run the [LIFTED] country like you're being paid for. [LIFTED]!

It's cash for questions all over again. The Tories can't help themselves, can they?

I think the problem is rather that too many politicians do exactly that. Help themselves to whatever they think they can get away with...

Sleazy politicians shopped by a paper owned by a man who's just been dragged through the courts, and so forth, over questionable relationships with those in power?
Perhaps the most incestuous 'news' story for quite some time.
This story has been broken not because someone has good intentions at heart, but because they've a chip on their shoulder.
It was the same the last time round with the Conservatives, then Labour got in on the act. Nothing will change until we change the system of government.

While it's deplorable on the face of it, I have to say, if I was donating vast sums to a party and didn't get access, I'd be pretty miffed. You don't donate huge sums to a party for no reason. Thinking about such things led me to think, "why is it okay for the unions to donate so much to labour?" then I thought, "well that's fine because labour is a party for the unions started by the unions" then I thought, "well how is that fair?".

A few points.
Firstly, Cameron and his team have not made lives easy for a lot of people, yet still appearing to favour the wealthy and very rich. The last Budget appeared to cement that vie point, with the “granny tax” - effectively upsetting the [b]Daily Mail[b]. If you are a Tory, you really have to go the extra distance to do that. So it appears that meeting and greeting Cameron and his family over dinner at Number 10 attracts a fee - and a not unsubstantial one too. Some many say that this is a way around the rules - the ones that govern party political donations. There is a limit, and larger donations must be public. So we are looking at a potential dodge.

Secondly, Number 10 Downing Street, and its apartments, is a grace and favour residence. Cameron does not own it in the same way that he does not own Chequers. It’s his residence as part of the job, and he will hand it over to the next PM when he’s hoofed out. He can do what he likes as far as I am concerned in his own, privately owned properties. However, when at No 10, Chequers or any other official residence, he’s the Prime Minister and should not be undertaking Conservative Party business - as opposed to the business of running the country as a Conservative . For example, of he’s sitting in his Number 10 residence meeting people about the next Tory Party election campaign, that’s not on. That needs to be done in non-gvernment territory. If he’s attending to affairs of state, then he’s clearly right to be doing so in Number 10. As he’s not saying who he met with or what they discussed or even how much cash changed hands, then we have to assume that there may well be something being concealed.

I would suggest the main difference in the way the Labour Party and the Conservative party are funded is down to openness and egalitarianism. The bare fact is we know who funds the labour party and how much each union gives - it's published to the union's members each year. And the members can vote to increase it, decrease it or stop it altogether. The latter is unlikely to be fair but a few of them got pretty close to it toward the end of Tony Blair's time in office,. So essentially the labour party's funds rely on keeping a large of people happy, or at least not so pissed off they decide to do something about it, and it's all pretty public.

In contrast, the tories rely on large donations from a relatively small number of private individuals. Until fairly recently, they made no effort to publicise who those people were (and indeed the law requiring them to do so was as much a piece of political mischief by labour as anything else). Now we have the notion that people who pay a pretty large amount of money get a personal meeting with the prime minister or chancellor of the exchequer to discuss 'policy'.

Both parties are representing a 'vested interest' but in the one case that is a fair portion of the population and everyone knows more or less what's going on. In the other case the vested interest is a very small number of people and nobody else knows quite what they're up to. Given that, it's beholden to the tories to at least appear to play nice. It's not so much how they get their money as how guilty they appear while doing so that's the problem. And trying to weasel out of public scrutiny of how they do it makes them appear pretty guilty.

Jon

Can't think of anything I'd like to do less than have dinner with the PM (or any politician for that matter).

Actually I could, but they all involve loss of some bodily part without the use of an anesthetic.