Can we all just stop being so stupid?
OK, so the Work and Pension Secretary forgetting about over £100k is news story, but the stuff being written about Alan Johnson today is just daft.
The BBC are leading with it, and I have to ask whether a donation of £3000 to a failed candidate in a contest that didn't matter anyway is really that important?
Ahh, I hear you cry, its the principle. Really? What principle? The law here has something quite ass-like about it. If the donation did come via a "third party", how is the recipient supposed to know? Ask? What if the recorded donor doesn't tell the truth, which presuming they're passing money on from someone who doesn't want to be known they wouldn't?
You can't have a law that it is impossible to comply with. You get donations, you do the legal checks you can do, but there is no way you can trace money to the point the law requires. Nobody can know for sure whether its the donors money, or was given to them, or stolen from elsewhere. Only the donor knows the origin of their cash, so thats is where the legal liability must sit. Can we all just move on please, there are people being killed in Kenya.
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Posted by: Gavin Whenman | January 27, 2008 at 12:41 PM
I've just blogged about this at Labourhome - basically the threshold for donations to deputy leadership campaigns is £5000 anyway so none of the donations mentioned in the Sunday Mirror need be declared at all.
Posted by: David Boothroyd | January 27, 2008 at 01:21 PM
Ah yes, it does seem a few blogs ar saying the same thing. Did have this thought myself though, honest guv!
Posted by: Austin | January 28, 2008 at 01:05 AM