Liberal Burblings

Archive for May, 2008

24 points ahead and wet dreams about Winchester.

It’ll all end in tears. The bubble will burst. You mark my words.

I’m off for the third time to Henley Constituency today – it’s a very sunny day so it should be great. Please help if you can – BBC South Today had a very positive piece for us last night featuring particularly the “READY WHEN YOU ARE DAVE” sign in our Thame HQ. There is an excellent campaign web site here. To save on travelling, leaflets can now be picked up from three locations in the south (e.g Goring) and north-west of the constituency, as well as from Thame – just phone the HQ to arrange this.

Oh dear me. Five weeks to find £7.45 million. I would have thought that tapping up someone rich for that sort of scale of spoondoolicks would be difficult given the current state of unpopularity of Gordon Brown and Labour. How’s Sainsbury’s doing these days?

Senior officials in the Labour party, including Gordon Brown, could become personally liable for millions of pounds in debt unless new donors can be found within weeks, the Guardian has learned.

The party has five weeks to find £7.45m to pay off loans to banks and wealthy donors recruited by Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s former chief fundraiser, or become insolvent. A further £6.2m will have to be repaid by Christmas – making £13.65m in all. The sum amounts to two-thirds of the party’s annual income from donations.

The figures are a conservative estimate as they do not include interest that will also have to be paid. A Labour source said that although the total debt was listed as £17.8m on the Electoral Commission website, the true level, with interest, was nearer to £24m.

Oh dear me. Five weeks to find £7.45 million. I would have thought that tapping up someone rich for that sort of scale of spoondoolicks would be difficult given the current state of unpopularity of Gordon Brown and Labour. How’s Sainsbury’s doing these days?

Senior officials in the Labour party, including Gordon Brown, could become personally liable for millions of pounds in debt unless new donors can be found within weeks, the Guardian has learned.

The party has five weeks to find £7.45m to pay off loans to banks and wealthy donors recruited by Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s former chief fundraiser, or become insolvent. A further £6.2m will have to be repaid by Christmas – making £13.65m in all. The sum amounts to two-thirds of the party’s annual income from donations.

The figures are a conservative estimate as they do not include interest that will also have to be paid. A Labour source said that although the total debt was listed as £17.8m on the Electoral Commission website, the true level, with interest, was nearer to £24m.

BBC South Today (Peter Henley reporting from…..Thame – chicken!) have reported this evening that the Liberal Democrats in Henley have made a flying start with our by-election campaign. Here’s the video report.

The report also says that David Cameron has strong-armed the local constituency over the way they choose their candidate. Mark Pack explains:

The background is that the local party had a timetable it wanted to follow for selecting their candidate, including the use of an open primary. Conservative Central Office tried to talk them out of both, sending John Maples to tell them what to do. According to a well-placed eye-witness John Maples’s pleas were rebuffed and David Cameron then had to meet personally with the local party to get it to fall into line.

On BBC Radio Oxford this morning the local party chair, John Walsh, confirmed that the local party had been “firmly told” what to do.

The Conservative selection is now taking place on Friday night.