Cash for peerages....

Kunjufu · (#1 (**permalink**))

Priory boss to face MPs over loan

Dr Patel was angry to read his peer nomination was blocked

A businessman who lent the Labour Party £1.5m has said he is very happy to appear at a Commons inquiry into the giving of honours to political donors.

Dr Chai Patel is one of three Labour donors who lent the party more than a million pounds and whose names were put forward for places in the Lords.
In a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, 56% of people said they believed the prime minister had given peerages in return for donations and loans.
Just 14% thought Tony Blair had not.

Among Labour supporters, only a third accepted the prime minister's word that he had never given peerages in exchange for cash. The poll surveyed 1,811 people. Another poll for the Sunday Telegraph found that seven out of 10 people thought Labour was as "sleazy" as the scandal-prone Tories under John Major. In the ICM poll of 1,003 people, just under half said they believed Labour had offered peerages in return for big loans.

Patel peerage
The Commons public administration committee is to investigate the loans row, but Dr Patel's friends told the BBC he has nothing to hide.

Tony Blair promised a new systemThe doctor, who heads the Priory rehabilitation clinics, was angry to read media reports saying the House of Lords appointments commission had blocked his nomination as a Labour peer.

Dr Patel wrote to the honours watchdog to protest and the commission's reply, seen by the BBC, acknowledged the distress the media reports may have caused him but added its advice was confidential.

His friends said he had done nothing wrong and would not be withdrawing his name from the list of working peers. The BBC's political correspondent Sean Curran said the final decision would be up to the prime minister, but he would not act against the advice of the appointment commission.

On Saturday, Labour's chairman Ian McCartney defended the way the party raised £13.95m in undisclosed loans from wealthy backers to fight last year's general election. He said Labour acted within electoral law and used "every single penny" to get its MPs elected.