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Political Funding In The United Kingdom
Political funding in the United Kingdom has been a source of controversy for many years. Political parties in the UK may be funded through membership fees, party donations or through state funding, the latter of which is reserved for administrative costs. The general restrictions in the UK were held in ''Bowman v United Kingdom'' to be fully compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, article 10. History The first effort to regulate the financial dimension of political competition was the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. Although this landmark legislation was concerned with constituency candidates, their campaign expenses and their agents only, all other efforts to create a political finance regime started from here. Edward 16 The next legislative step to deal with the subject was the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 that sought to end the selling of titles in exchange for donations to political parties. In August 1976 the Committee on Financi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowman V United Kingdom
''Bowman v United Kingdom'' 998ECHR 4is a UK constitutional law case, concerning the legitimate limits on campaign finance spending. A majority of the court held that countries joined to the European Convention on Human Rights may be required to permit minimal levels of campaign spending. The minority held that the United Kingdom's near total ban on election-related spending should be regarded as compatible with ECHR article 10. The principle in ''Bowman'' stands in contrast to the unlimited spending at elections that the US Supreme Court opened up by ''Buckley v. Valeo'', where a majority struck down parts of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, and the licence of corporations to donate money as a protected right of "free speech" in ''Citizens United v. FEC'', with or without authorisation by their stakeholders. Facts Phyllis Bowman, an anti-abortion campaigner, distributed 25,000 leaflets in Halifax before the 1992 general election on the positions of three candidates o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberal Democrats (UK)
The Liberal Democrats (commonly referred to as the Lib Dems) are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. Since the 1992 general election, with the exception of the 2015 general election, they have been the third-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast. They have 14 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 83 members of the House of Lords, four Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in the Welsh Senedd. The party has over 2,500 local council seats. The party holds a twice-per-year Liberal Democrat Conference, at which party policy is formulated, with all party members eligible to vote, under a one member, one vote system. The party served as the junior party in a coalition government with the Conservative Party between 2010 and 2015; with Scottish Labour in the Scottish Executive from 1999 to 2007, and with Welsh Labour in the Welsh Government from 2000 to 2003 and from 2016 to 2021. In 1981, an electoral alliance was established b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Watt
Peter Martin Watt (born 20 July 1969) was the General Secretary of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom from January 2006 until he resigned in November 2007 as a result of the Donorgate affair. Watt was then a member of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Executive Board. He is now working for Hammersmith council directing all services relating to children. Early and family life From 1989 to 1992 Watt trained as a nurse at a predecessor institution to Bournemouth University, then worked for Poole Hospital NHS Trust. He is married and, as of 2007, the father of three children as well as a foster carer. Labour Party From 1996 he worked for the Labour Party, first as a local organiser for Battersea and Wandsworth, then in Labour Party head office on election delivery and recruitment and then as Regional Director of the Eastern region. In 2004 he gained a ''Professional Certificate in Management'' from the Open University. He returned to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Party Political Broadcast
A party political broadcast (also known, in pre-election campaigning periods, as a party election broadcast) is a television or radio broadcast made by a political party. In the United Kingdom the Communications Act 2003 prohibits (and previously the Broadcasting Act 1990 and earlier broadcasting practice prohibited) political advertising on television or radio; parties are instead allocated broadcast slots (usually around five minutes long) free of charge on broadcast channels using a formula set by Parliament. From 1953 to 2012, government and opposition commentaries were broadcast on the evening of the annual budget statement. Ministerial Broadcasts are occasionally made on urgent matters of a non-partisan nature. A similar format exists in the Republic of Ireland, though for smaller parties, because a greater number of them are represented in the Dáil, their allocated time may be as little as one or two minutes each. In Canada, the Canada Elections Act includes provi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Party Proxy And Undeclared Donations (2007)
The Labour party proxy and undeclared donations was a political scandal involving the British Labour Party in November and December 2007, when it was discovered that, contrary to legislation passed during the Blair Government, the Party had been receiving significant financial donations made anonymously via third parties. The careers of Labour Party treasurer Peter Watt and the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Wendy Alexander, were curtailed as a consequence. In May 2009 the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence for any prosecution relating to these events. Background Abrahams donations Tyneside lawyer David Abrahams had donated at least £548,850 to the Labour Party since 2003 via two colleagues, his solicitor and the wife of an employee, which broke electoral law forbidding the use of proxy donors. Abrahams had been involved with the Labour party over many years. In the time since Prime Minister Gordon Brown had come to power, Abrahams was now ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affiliated Trade Union
In British politics, an affiliated trade union is one that is linked to the Labour Party. The party was created by the trade unions and socialist societies in 1900 as the Labour Representation Committee and the unions have retained close institutional links with it. Affiliated unions pay an annual fee to the Labour Party; in return, they elect thirteen of the thirty-nine members of Labour's National Executive Committee and fifty per cent of the delegates to Labour Party Conference. Local union branches also affiliate to Constituency Labour Parties and their members who are also individual members of the Party may represent the union as delegates on Labour Party structures. Individual members may ''opt out'' of paying into a union's political fund which is used to finance the affiliation. Since 1994, affiliated trade unions have organised themselves into TULO - The Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation, with a small number of staff to manage the relationship between th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Leader's Office Fund
The Labour Leader's Office Fund was a blind trust established and run by Lord Levy to finance Tony Blair's work in opposition before the 1997 general election. Contributors to it included the millionaires Sir Trevor Chinn, Sir Emmanuel Kaye, Alex Bernstein and Bob Gavron, the latter two of whom later received peerages. Quotes about the fund * "While it does not necessarily follow that the scheme was anything other than the model of probity, there is at least an argument that Lloyd George knew its father." — David Osler, author of ''Labour Party PLC: New Labour as a Party of Business''. (Lloyd George was infamous for selling honours in the early 20th century.)For details see Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael: ''British Political Finance, 1830-1980'', Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1981, pp. 44, 54-58, 86-88, 116-119 See also *Political funding in the United Kingdom Political funding in the United Kingdom has been a source of controversy for many years. Political p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitutional Research Council
The Constitutional Research Council (CRC) is a Unionist funding organisation, chaired by Scottish Conservative Richard Cook. It helped to fund the anti-independence Better Together campaign during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 and the DUP's Leave campaign in Northern Ireland, and in mainland Britain, during the Brexit referendum in 2016. The CRC made a record-breaking donation to the DUP's leave campaign of £435,000, which was mainly used to fund advertising on the UK mainland. The CRC has also funded the European Research Group and its chairman, the Brexit minister Steve Baker. The CRC has no website, publishes no accounts and does not reveal the names of its donors. The only office-holder to be made public is the chairman Richard Cook, a former vice-chairman of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, parliamentary candidate in Glasgow Cathcart in 2003 and at the 2005 by-election, and a supporter of The Freedom Association. Cook has had business connec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cash For Influence (other)
Cash for Influence, Cash for Laws or Cash for Amendments may refer to: * Cash for Honours, 2006, 2007 * 2009 cash for influence scandal * 2010 cash for influence scandal * 2011 cash for influence scandal See also * Cash for access (other) Cash for access refers to scandals involving the clandestine receipt of money for delivering meetings with senior office-holders. Examples include: * Derek Draper, 1998 Cash for Access scandal, also known as 'Lobbygate' * Sarah, Duchess of York, 2 ... {{disambig de:Spendenaffäre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United And Cecil Club
The United and Cecil Club (U&C) is a British dining club with close links to the Conservative Party. Formed in 1949 following the merger of the United Club and the Cecil Club, the club is the seventh-largest donor to the Conservatives, and focuses its donations on marginal seats. Club members have been accused of taking advantage of a loophole in political fundraising laws to donate large sums to the Conservatives without declaring them. History The two forerunners to the U&C were both formed in the 1880s following the death of the unifying figure Benjamin Disraeli. The Constituencies Union, which later became the United Club, was formed in 1881 to raise funds for Conservatives in difficult constituencies, while the National Review and Cecil Club was formed in 1882 by supporters of the Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury to publish the journal ''National Review''. These served as bastions of conservatism during the National Government eras, but follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loophole
A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow vertical window in a wall through which an archer (or, later, gunman) could shoot. Loopholes were commonly used in U.S. forts built during the 1800s. Located in the sally port, a loophole was considered a last ditch defense, where guards could close off the inner and outer doors trapping enemy soldiers and using small arms fire through the slits. Loopholes are distinct from lacunae, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. In a loophole, a law addressing a certain issue exists, but can be legally circumvented due to a technical defect in the law, such as a situation where the details are under-specified. A lacuna, on the other hand, is a situation in which no law exists in the first place to address that particular issue. Use a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Lords scrutinises Bill (law), bills that have been approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends bills from the Commons. While it is unable to prevent bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the more powerful House of Commons that is independent of the electoral process. While members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, high-ranking officials such as cabinet ministers are usually drawn from the Commons. The House of Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
