Sunday, December 6, 2009

Labour MSP Iain Gray has a lot of explaining to do as the Labour Party declare themselves above the rules
























Dear All

The first words out of a Labour MSP’s mouth after a sleaze scandal enters the public domain are;

‘I acted in good faith’!

Labour MSP Iain Gray who is famous for his ‘bring it on’ attitude is involved in a sleaze row over money.

I suspect that he will be less likely to want publicly to bring this on as it raises questions on the legitimacy of money donated to him.

It is alleged that £6700 of public resources were diverted to Prestonpans Labour Party to stage an annual fundraiser.

East Lothian council rules forbidding such practices, on top of that Mr. Invisible, Iain Gray received £800 from this branch.

Like Wendy Alexander; Gray says he acted in “good faith”, this was more or less the ‘Alexander defence’ before she resigned in disgrace over her illegal donations scandal.

One of the themes I highlight is that Scotland is a corrupt country, it isn’t what you know but how you know that counts.

East Lothian Council has rules, clear rules prohibited resources going to political parties.

This arrangement was instigated while the Labour Party controlled the East Lothian Council and was continually rubber stamped.

This only came to light when the Council now run by the SNP and Liberal Democrats were working on the draft budget and discovered the anomaly.

SNP councillor Paul McLennan said;

“We want to find out who instructed this. It does not matter whether it was £200 or £7,000; it is the principle of the thing. The rules are clear that the local authority should not give any support to political parties. Officials are looking into this and we want the money back.”

But despite the rules being clear the Labour Party isn’t accepting the Council rules apply to them.

David Costello, chairman of Preston­pans Labour Party issues the following excuse as justification for the Labour Party breaking the rules, no wrongdoing, because the party was part of the community.

In trying to distance Labour MSP Iain Gray from the scandal, the Labour Party has said;

“Iain (Gray) has nothing to do with the running of this and nothing to do with the organising.”

But he did benefit financially from it, the pertinent point.

The Labour Party has excuse its behaviour on the basis that it has gotten away with this for over 20 years and Fiona Hyslop has been moved from being the Education Secretary.

Let’s see if Labour MSP Iain Gray will ‘bring it on’ into the public domain or will do a Wendy Alexander and hide behind the rules.

The only downside for the Labour Party and Iain Gray in this case is unlike the Wendy Alexander case, the people doing the investigating aren’t an “independent” body stuffed with Labour Party supporters who depend on the UK Labour Government for their existence.

Tory MSP Derek Brownlee said;

“The value of these donations to Labour must be repaid immediately. This is an abuse of taxpayers’ money.”

I don’t sense that Iain Gray will be getting much in the way of cross party support from his peers at Holyrood on this one.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many councils previously run, as a matter of course, by Labour, have had 'nodded through' arrangements for more years than enough.

Hight time a commission was set up to look at this and I'd just love to be on it!

G Laird said...

Dear Tris

I agree with you, if everyone is getting equal treatment then no one should get special treatment.

I would like to see what else the Labour Party have been passing through to help themselves.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University