Well it looks like HIlary Benn's hopes of the deputy leadership this morning. As I said in the last post, he's been struggling to find the necessary nominations, and now he has become embroiled in a sleaze scandal. I know... sleaze and the Labour Party... who'd a thought it? Apparently, according to the Sunday Telegraph, Benn has £233,000 of shares in a company (United Business Media) that his department commissions work too.
Now, in fairness to Benn, these shares have been on the Register of Members Interests for some time (years in fact) so it's not exactly new news. And, according to the Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, Benn "has been shielded from any decision making regarding UBM."
3 comments:
Beat me to it. The fact that he (finally) managed to fulfil his responsibilities as an MP is a separate question to his duties under the Ministerial Code. It's no excuse, but it's not surprising that Ministers don't take the Code seriously given the woeful enforcement of the Code.
Oh and Sir John Bourn isn't exactly a paragon of virtue.
The much more interesting point is the one slyly alluded to. Some of the shares came from Tony Benn.
Who would have thought it, an old socialist like that, making lifetime gifts so as to dodge inheritance tax?
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