Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations



Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is in trouble this morning after it emerged that he failed to declare £487,000 worth of donations to the Register of Members' Interests.

Given Cameron kicked up so much of a fuss over similar Labour situations, he'll presumably be asking for his Shadow Chancellor to resign?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=XUT1ZMT0EXVWDQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/200 8/01/13/nosborne213.xml



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Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#1)

Oh please. The situations are not 'similar.' George Osborne made a full declaration to the Electoral Commission about these donations. He asked if he needed to declare it to the Register of Members' Interests as well as was told he didn't have to.

He declared it. Unlike Hain, Harman and Alexander, who didn't. Absolute non-story.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#2)

Why didn't he just declare it anyway? Surely it's better to be safe than sorry.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#3)

Half a million is an awful lot of money. Can you tell us how it was spent? For his Office? Doesn't he get enough in expenses, from the State, to take care of his Office?When it comes to donations, the Tories would be wiser to keep mum before criticising others, otherwise they'll find an awful lot of skeletons tumbling out of their cupboard.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#4)

Osborne should have seeked advice from a number of sources, not just one - especially for such a huge amount of money.

It is standard practice to declare such donations to the Register, yet Osborne failed to do so.

He broke the rules and the law and should be paying the price for it.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#8)

Standard practice and the law can be two different things. Hain et al didn't declare donations at all, Osborne at least declared them to the Electoral Commission.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#9)

'standard practice'? you mean taking advantage of a loophole in the Law? I'd condemn anyone from, any Party, that did that.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#11)

If you took the trouble to read what actually happen you will see that Osborne has NOT broken any law, unlike Peter Hain who has.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#12)

Arguably he did break the law because all donations that are used to run staff offices must be registered in the Register of Members' Interests.

Osborne failed to do this. He should have known this common practice without even having to ask for advice. Especially when the sums of money were so large.

Not to mention, two of those donors didn't even want their donations to go to Osborne's office. Very fishy.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#13)

Naturally The Times is pretending this story doesn't exist.

They lead on their website with the Hain story but Osborne's shennanigans are completely absent! That rag is now more right wing than the Mail.

 declaring it as a non-story is just not going to wash. The Tories are trumpeting about Hain not managing his expenses and donations well, whilst they do exactly the same and for much larger sums. Sorry chaps, you got caught with your pants down and now should be made to suffer for it.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#14)

Arguably,what does that mean, nothing, you know full well he has not broken any law so you bring in the word arguably just to suit your own opinion.
Osborne has not broken any law Hain has.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#15)

There needs to be a full inquiry to determine whether either Osborne or Hain have broken the law. Hain has said he will co-operate fully with any inquiry. Osborne has refused (as has Cameron). What have the Tories got to hide?

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#16)

exactly; he's skirted around the law. its the same difference as between tax avoidance and tax evasion, and being shadow chancellor, osborne would know quite a lot about that.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#17)

It is comments like this that are red rags to the bull -

"Tax avoidance" is a perfectly legitimate tool to reduce the tax bill - everyone who takes advantage of a personal allowance 'indulges' in tax avoidance.  It is not 'exploiting a loophole' or taking part in activity that is in some way 'immoral' or wrong.  It is simply ensuring that the Government only takes that part of a persons wealth, income or gain that it, the Government, is entitled to according to the laws it, the Government, makes.

"Tax evasion", on the other hand, is illegal, deceitful and involves what may well be criminal concealment which may justify criminal sanction.

Now, there is a line between the two that many lawyers enjoy working in.  This arises from the complexity of the legislation, from the ambiguity of language used and from the ability to interpret (perfectly properly) words and phrases in a number of ways.

The problem with the laws in relation to party funding and interest declaration appears to increasingly be that there are a number of bodies interpreting them; they sometimes come to different conclusions; they provide differing advice; and when one looks at the totality, there is real confusion.

On the one hand you have someone who makes one declaration and, after seeking advice, decidees not to make another - whether he was right to do so is to be decided.  On the other, you have someone who, for whatever reason, fails to make any declaration at all.  Methinks there is a difference in the quality of the alleged failures in the two cases ... don't you?

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#19)

I think we can all be in agreement that Osborne certain didn't follow the law in the spirit that it was made - and regardless of whether it was actually illegal or not, he is certainly in the wrong.

Still, we do need an official inquiry to determine if what he did was worse than that.

And btw, tax avoidance is immoral and wrong and it breaks the spirit of the law - it's these loopholes which allow CEO's to pay less tax than their cleaners. Do you think that's right?

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#23)

I don't think you'll fnd that I agree with you at all.  The law is either broken or not ... as a simple lawyer, I don't think I have ever come across a verdict that says that someone broke the 'spirit in which the law was made'.

Osborne has asked for the relevant Parliamentary people to clarify.

"And btw, tax avoidance is immoral and wrong and it breaks the spirit of the law - it's these loopholes which allow CEO's to pay less tax than their cleaners."

It is the law that enables CEO's to pay less tax in some circumstances, if they are not resident here and have very little income here, than their cleaners ... it is not the tax avoidance that enables it.

There is an interesting argument to be had about law and morality, but that goes far beyond the scope of a blog ...

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#25)

What a bizarre logic. We're not talking about a man on the street here, we're talking about a man who wants to become the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

And I'm afraid if you want to hold an office of such high esteem, then that means you must follow the law in the spirit of the law.

You're saying that Osborne did wrong, but because it wasn't expressively outlawed, he should get away with it?

This is how politicians get away with so much by exploiting loopholes.


However, many still believe Osborne wasn't entirely lawful anyway. That's why we need a full investigation to examine what happened which Osborne should comply with.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#28)

There are times when the law and what you descrbe as the 'spirit' of the law will align ... but in this instance, what you describe as the 'spirit' of the law does not accord with what the 2000 Act or the rules on declarations of interest say.

It is the wording of the law and rules that is important; not your interpretation of them and description of something that you call the 'spirit' of the law. 

No bizarre logic; simple logic.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#32)

Well what you say is not quite true.

It is specific in the rules that Osborne should have declared his donations (and the use of the donations to fund his office) to the Register of Members' Interests.

But Osborne did not do this. First of all, he should have had the good sense to realise anyway that he needed to declare it with them - especially for such a large donation. And he shouldn't have been foolish enough to seek advice from just one person.

Now he is a man who wants to become Chancellor of the Excehquer and handle multi-billion-pound budgets. If he can't even sort his own personal finances out, then how can he sort out the nation's?

At best he has demonstrated severe incompetence, and at worst, he has cheated the system and should resign.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#34)

Have a look at the rules on registration of members interests  - 'The Guide to the rules relating to the conduct of Members' which is accessible here http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/code03.htm#a10.

The category that might apply would be category 4 - Sponsorship. 

The problem with the Osborne donations is that they were made to the party to pay for Osborne's office costs - they were not constituency matters and so fall outside 4(a).  The question is whether they fall into 4 (b).  The donations resulted in staff costs and other costs being paid by the party - is that support 'as a Member of Parliament'?

You say that 'it is specific in the rules' that these donations should have been declared.  I disagree.  The rules are not specific and neither should they be.  At the same time, it is not clear that donations to the party for the purpose of funding an office of a shadow minister would be registerable under them.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is the person to whom MPs turn for advice on these sorts of issue.  That individual has an office with staff and is paid for by the taxpayer to run, amongst other things, the register of members' interests.  The budget isn't small.  You criticise Osborne for relying on advice from 'just one person' - what would you propose?  That an MP with a question asks every person in the PCS's office for advice on the same issue?  That an MP consult the PCS's office and then also seeks advice from a lawyer as well?  Where would it end?

The donations were not a matter of 'personal finance'.  They were a matter of funding for the office that Osborne holds. 

Your last sentence defies logic, argument and, I have to say, sense.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#35)

Well let's not be silly about this. There are a few points where I don't agree with you here.

The problem with the Osborne donations is that they were made to the party to pay for Osborne's office costs
Again, not true since two of the donations (from the Cypriot millionaire and his wife) were never intended to be for Osborne's office. This has yet to be explained.

The donations resulted in staff costs and other costs being paid by the party - is that support 'as a Member of Parliament'?

As far as I'm aware 'staff costs' refers to all parliamentary staff for that MP - whether as just an MP or as a Shadow Cabinet member as well. That sounds quite specific to me.

This money was being used to fund Osborne's office in addition to the Short money he receives. Therefore this should have been registered in the Register of Members' Interests. And that's why he's now been told that he must now do this.

Now to be honest, since Osborne is a senior Parliamentarian who wants to become Chancellor of the Excehquer, I would expect him to know already that it was necessary for him to register these very large donations.


And also, when you're talking about sums of nearly half a million pounds, I would expect there to be some sort of consultation with independent sources - like a lawyer to double check everything.

So as I said, at best this is incompetence, or if he deceived the Parliamentary authorities (particularly over the Cypriot millionaire donations), then that constitutes something much worse.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#36)

General donations (i.e. donations that are not directed at a psecific target) to the party that are spent paying staff directly would not be registerable in the register of members interests at all - on my reading of the guidance and rules.

The problem with the text of the guidance and rules arises only where there is a specified target for the donation.

Another problem is that the post of MP is not the same as the post of shadow minister ... when a person becomes a member of parliament, the are the representative of the people of the constituency that elects them; they are not the representative of the party for whom they stand.  The shadow ministerial post is held, not as a result of the status as member of parliament, but as a result of a position in the party.  Hence, the office is not an office that is occupied as a result of being a member of parliament - indeed members of the House of Lords can be ministers and shadow ministers and, arguably, a minister could be appointed from outside the Houses of Parliament altogether (although that hasn't been done, I believe, for over 100 years).

As a result, I am not sure that it is necessary, as a matter of interpretation of the rules, for the payment of these office costs to be registered at all.  This is, I accept, a matter of argument; but it is simply not right to assert that these were 'clearly registerable interests' or words to that effect; there is doubt as to whether they are registerable at all.

These gifts were, perfectly properly, registered with the EC; as the law required them to be. 

Of course, this could be said to be the political manifestation of the proliferation of regulation and rules brought about in the last 10 years - where similar arguments and discussions can be had about many areas of regulation.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#37)

As I say, in order to establish the facts and to discover if there was any wrongdoing, then there should be an inquiry held. I still don't understand why Osborne is refusing to take part in this - if he's innocent, he's got nothing to worry about.

General donations (i.e. donations that are not directed at a psecific target) to the party that are spent paying staff directly would not be registerable in the register of members interests at all - on my reading of the guidance and rules.

Clearly that must not be the case though, since this whole affair wouldn't have become controversial. The donations seem to be specificially targeted for Osborne - that's why it was reported that two of the donations from the Cypriot millionaire family should not have been directed towards him.


So if that's the case, which I believe it is, then he should have registered them under the Members Interests list.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#38)

The very simple reason that this has become controversial is because people have been scrabbling around to shout 'you too' when confronted by the idiocy of the Peter Hain situation. 

What I have been explaining is that there is no 'you too' situation here at all.  The donations to the Conservative Party were, quite properly, registered with the Electoral Commission and, despite your description of two of the donors being 'from a Cypriot millionaire family', no-one has suggested that the donations were in some were impermissible.

The question is whether the donations needed to be registered as a member's interest; my view, when looking at the rule and the guidance is very clearly that it is not clear.  I suspect that the reason that guidance was sought some months after the gifts was that MPs and parties were looking at all recent donations in the wake of the Abrahams affair.

I am glad that you now say that you believe that they should have been registered - because there is no certainty and that is precisely why there is no equivalence.  On the one hand you have declared donations which were properly declared to the EC and where advice has been sought which does not resolve the problem as to whether they also ought to be registered as a member's interest; on the other, you have a situation whether a minister of the Government that brought in most of these rules, apparently doesn't know about more than half the money that he spend on his personal campaign and so doesn't register the gifts with anyone until after questions start being asked.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#39)

I disagree. We're not talking about donations to the Electoral Commission - we're talking about donations to the Register of Members Interests. Here, Osborne (and indeed it looks like several other members of the Shadow Cabinet) failed to do his duties and broke the rules.


And indeed it has already been said that there is something dodgy with the Cypriot millionaire donation - that's why the Daily Mail reported it in the first place. Osborne has yet to explain why those donations have been funnelled to his office.

And the rules seem perfectly clear to me. After reading them, it appears that donations used to fund an office (and as far as I'm concerned that includes Shadow Cabinet offices) must be registered accordingly. Osborne did not do this, nor did he seek a sufficient amount of advice considering the donations were so large.


I go back to my original line - that this is at best severe incompetence, at worse, something more devious.

I wait to see which other Shadow Cabinet members are involved in this.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#40)

Well there we have it.  You have your view; I have mine.  We could have saved some time, but it wouldn't have been much fun!

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#42)

Indeed, it was a good conversation!

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#7)

er no its very serious. Osborne is the Shadow Chancellor and responsible for the Tory's Party's policy on financial services and the city - he should have therefore declared this money regardless. And why did it take him nearly twelve months to ask if he needed to declare it in the register of members interests?

To attempt to dismiss this very serious lapse of judgement as a 'non-story' beggars belief!

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#10)

I agree with you this is a non story, I do not recall seeing a similar posting on this site with regards to Peter Hain who BROKEN THE LAW, George Osborne HAS NOT.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#5)

A bit more news on this - the Daily Mail revealed that two of the donors (Cypriot-born millionaire Tony Yerolemou and his wife Barbara) had not asked that their party donation should be chanelled to Osborne's office.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=507891&in_page_id=17 70&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

All sounds a bit dodgy to me. Osborne could get in a lot of trouble over this.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#6)

Seems Osborne is paying out £28,388/month for 7 staff, costing between £1,950 and £6,524/month each (including NI costs etc).

To be fair to Osborne on the amounts, we have to recall the so-called "blind trusts", now outlawed, that funded Blair, Prescott, Brown, Beckett & Co when they were in oppostion. Figures remain confidential, but best guess is that in 3 years Blair alone received around £2.5m thru trusts before becoming Prime Minister. (On top of the official £1m Short Money, as state handouts to the opposition for research etc.)

All this grubby money stiff stinks, and gives undue influence to those that don't deserve it - and helps ensure our politics are more right-wing than it should be.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#18)

We all know what this is really about - stopping the Tories from being able to make hay on the Hain issue by having an easy comeback. However, the difference is that while the Tories have been quite prepared to explain the matter ad infinitum (mainly because they've got a better tale to tell), Hain has only issued a single statement, with no questions allowed. The way Ministers are less and less available to answer questions when the chips are down does them no favours whatsoever.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#20)

I think the fact that so many Tories have felt the need to post on here proves that perhaps this is quite a serious story! Osborne should be getting worried.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#21)

The serious story here is that Hain broke the law and you cannot admit it, nor did you put up a post about it.
If any of your contributors - of whatever political persuasion - had fiddled in excess of £100,00.00 they would have had their collars felt by now, as Hains dept web site says " no ifs or buts ", (unless its me.)
On the question of the amount Osborne has to run a permanent office, this pales into comparison when Hain spends nearly £200,000.00 on a six week campaign.
I would condemn ANY politician who broke the law, its just a shame that you only pick and choose.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#24)

So you're condemning George Osborne and admitting that he broke the law then?

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#26)

No, because he has not broken the law, its no use twisting my words to suit your own ends, it just wont wash. Osborne declared this money to the Electoral Commission and is open to all to view on their web site. 
Peter Hain however did not and has clearly broken the law, if you cannot accept this then it says more about YOU than me!

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#33)

But nobody's talking about Osborne's declaration to the Electoral Commission. We're talking about his failure to declare to the Register of Members' Interests, which he should have done as the donations were being used to fund his office.


Also, as I've said elsewhere on here, two of the donations received weren't even supposed to be used to fund Osborne's office - so why were they used for that purpose?


The rules have been broken - plain and simple. Osborne should do the decent thing and allow a full inquiry to establish what happened, but he's failed to do that. What has he got to hide?


It's also worth noting that many journalists are predicting that many other Shadow Cabinet members have fallen foul of the law in this way too. Interesting times ahead...

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#22)

All this fuss over convoluted declaration rules and who may or may not have broken the spirit of the law and the letter of the law – I’m sorry to have to say but this is all politics at its worst and political discourse at its most childish and petulant. Nobody stole any of this money.

In our heart of hearts, we don’t actually believe George Osborne set out to fiddle - certainly, no more than anyone truly believes Peter Hain deliberately set out to defraud the electoral commission.

The awful truth is that Tories are hoping to see Hain fired for the gaudy and fleeting bad press it will bring for the Government. Nothing more than that. I see some Labour people are little better although this hypocritical piety and finger-pointing from Tories is almost unbearable.

And often we wonder why people are so turned off by politics…

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#27)

People are turned off by politics because they see ministers breaking the law and getting away with it.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#29)

What makes you think the Tories want Hain to resign? Much better for them to have a damaged minister on the front bench than to promote someone genuinely talented. Also, the longer this goes on, and the more Brown procrastinates, the more they are able to reinforce his reputation as a dithering Mr Bean.

My original point was that Labour Ministers need to be more willing to face the music in person in front of the press, and as if to demonstrate my point Labour have put someone called Ian Lucas on Newsnight - who is this man?

A whipping boy, pure and simple.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 (#30)

Thank you for the tabloid analysis Dick and 'Spider'. Conservatism should be proud of you both.

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#31)

Tabloid or not that doesn't make my analysis inaccurate...

Re: Osborne fails to declare £487,000 donations (#43)

Personally I couldn't give a monkey's about whether the donations were legal or not.  I would strongly question the impartiality of anyone's actions when they are in hock to someone else for the amounts which we seen in Osbourne's or Hain's case. 

This is especially true when it comes to "research" funding.  The research is unlikely to ever give an answer contrary to the funder's wishes and merely provides arguments to support the initial proposition.  I find Osbourne's donations the stronger threat to democracy (unlike Hain's, where I initially feel sorry for the bloke to spend more than the other candidates put together and still come 5th and am beginning to feel a lack of moral fibre in him not resigning now).

There is something fundementally wrong with the structure of government when individual interests are able to sway strategy through the application of their existing resources. 

We need strict limitations on party funding and election spending and we need them now.  If the tories will not agree, we should just legislate and leave a fait a compli.