Written By: - Date published: 6:32 pm, September 6th, 2008 - 54 comments
Categories: crosby textor, john key, national, uncategorized -
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Lord Ashcroft is a worry.
Not just to John Key, who had to admit that he didn’t know why Ascroft had met him at Key’s home: it just happened to be in his diary.
According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, he is also a worry to many in the Conservative Party.
Ashcroft “does not just give donations, he is also responsible for the Party’s polling and target seat strategy. When the shadow cabinet is briefed on focus group or poll results, it is Lord Ashcroft who presents the results. That puts him in an extraordinarily powerful position.”
He is also a generous donor. “According to the Electoral Commission website, he has given almost L2.6 million to the Conservatives since 2003.”
“About half of this comes in donations in kind – polling, focus group work, consultancy work and at one point last year, rather bizarrely, L5,927.88 for ‘bottle openers’”.
Both John Key and Lord Ashcroft were at pains to tell TV3′s Duncan Garner that Lord Ashcroft had given no money to the National Party. But nobody asked Key were there any donations in kind of the sort mentioned above – polling, focus group work, consultancy services such as those provided by Crosby/Textor, who were also used by the Conservative Party.
Kiwis wouldn’t need the bottle openers.
Donations of such kind are significant because Lord Ashcroft is not just the Deputy Chairman of the British Conservative Party, he is also the Treasurer of the International Democratic Union. This was founded several years ago by Margaret Thatcher and George HW Bush to give political and organising assistance to right-wing parties around the world. John Howard is its current President. As has been noted, Ashcroft gave the Liberals in Australia $1million for the 2004 election.
So Ashcroft’s job is also to provide such help to their member parties. He didn’t fly halfway around the world just to give Key the latest news from Britain.
What Key should be asked is whether or not any political services to the National Party were discussed or arranged at the meeting? Donations of services are expressly described as party donations in the Electoral Finance Act, and as John Key himself noted when ruling out donations of cash, they cannot be made by overseas persons if they are valued at more than $1,000.
The law also says that if a donation – say of a service – of more than $1,000 in value is received from an overseas person that person must within 20 working days of receipt return the donation, less $1,000, or pay it to the Electoral Commission.
The deadline is September 26th.
Plenty of time for questions. Watch out for slippery answers.
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Yawn, travellerev and others, can we stick to the topic please, I’m sure there are other blogs you can post this stuff to.
As for the MSM, the Winston Peters-Helen Clark thing has much more legs to it right now. I’m sure this post is an attempt to distract from that, but I wonder how much longer Clark will continue to sycophantically prop up Peters given the damage that is being done by association.
I beg your pardon. It must be the fault of this computer. On my screen, the topic at the head of this thread reads
“Lord Ashcroft is a worry. Not just to John Key, who had to admit that he didn’t know why Ascroft had met him at Key’s home: it just happened to be in his diary.”
…to which posters leveled sneers of conspiracy theory.
If my posts are appearing on a “Winston Peters-Helen Clark ” thread by some mischance, I apologise.
Dear Bill, a bit of your own conspiracy theory
”
A search on “Merrill Lynch Fraud’ turns up nearly a million items – many proven cases such as
“SEC Charges Four Merrill Lynch Executives with Aiding and Abetting Enron Accounting Fraud’”
What is a “proven case”? Were you unable to write “Four Merrill Lynch Executives Convicted of Aiding and Abetting Enron Accounting Fraud” because no such convictions were obtained? Is that the truth of this matter?
Is it therefore the case that by insinuation you are smearing Key with some other activity that took place during a period when he worked for Merrill Lynch, but you can’t prove that he was involved or that there was anything untoward about it, it is just your opinion isn’t it.
There is a lot of hot air opinion on the internet these days – like this blog and many other blogs and web sites.
Google is ten years old and hot air blogs are everywhere. It stinks.
Where has dad4justice gone as I wanted to wish him a happy fathers day?
Five executives convicted of fraud in Enron-Merrill trial
By Our City Staff
Thursday, 4 November 2004
A US jury convicted four former executives from the Wall Street bank Merrill Lynch and a former Enron finance executive of conspiracy and fraud yesterday for helping push through a sham deal to pad the energy company’s earnings.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/five-executives-convicted-of-fraud-in-enronmerrill-trial-531977.html
Felix:
Cool, thanks.
Bill – here’s an example for you regarding National’s leaks:
“Cockup usually wins over conspiracy for me, and it’s far more likely they were dropped or left somewhere by mistake in my opinon.”
Link.
Its all very well if one has a preference for “cockup over conspiracy” but there is evidence to consider here.
But wait…..there’s more.
Merrill’s Enron imbroglio couldn’t come at a worse time. Less than four months ago, Merrill paid $100 million to settle charges with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that its Internet analysts issued biased research reports to win investment-banking deals.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_37/b3799097.htm
Brett Dale @ Pascalls Bookie,
You may not believe this but in the early 90′s after Steve Earle came to NZ, we hooked up with him for a beer and actually sang Garth Brooks songs. From all accounts Steve and Garth get on like a house on fire.
There’s a time for “The Other Kind” and there’s a time for “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places”.
See also
MICHAEL ASHCROFT is a powerful man. A former treasurer of the Conservative Party, he is now its deputy-chairman. He is also a very wealthy man—the 65th richest in Britain, according to a rough-and-ready ranking by the Sunday Times. Through one of his companies, he has given over £3m ($6m, at ..
https://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11377008
Belize has two parallel societies: a native economy which struggles to make a living from agriculture, and a vibrant offshore financial sector dominated by foreign businessmen who fund and control the political system. The country is almost feudal, dominated by magnates such as Lord Ashcroft, Baron of Belize, who has used his financial muscle to gain influence in the ruling People’s United Part (PUP). Ashcroft’s eagerness to protect his offshore interests threatened vital British debt relief in 2002. This came after Hurricane Iris devastated Belize’s poor fishing communities and indigenous villages, which would have benefited from the freeing up of spending that debt relief could have brought.
Ashcroft’s extensive business interests are inseparable from the nation’s political and economic fabric. The US ambassador to Belize, George Bruno, claimed ‘Belize government officials realise that he [Ashcroft] has financial resources equal to the Belize government, that his contacts exceed the government’s in the international community and that he is prepared to litigate all the way to the privy council on any issue’. He was the main protagonist in the establishment of the country’s offshore financial sector, which has achieved infamy in recent years, and has entrenched his interests by forming a powerful grouping within the PUP. As such, Ashcroft has locked horns with several foreign governments over the county’s tax laws, which have granted his Carlisle Holdings a 30-yr moratorium worth up to US$20 million, ending in 2028. .. snip ..
http://www.scoopit.co.nz/shakeit.php
British billionaire Michael Ashcroft, owner of Belize Telemedia Ltd (BTL) took over Channel 5 TV on Tuesday, June 17, 2008. and Amalia Mai, former Belize Times editor and close friend of People’s United Party leader Johnny Briceño, is replacing Stewart Krohn as the company’s Chief Executive
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/080620-kinchen-columnsbelizediary.html
She tells the tale of
one Michael Ashcroft, Belizean citizen, owner of various banks and Treasurer
of the UK Conservative Party. Ashcroft was reported in The Times of London
as under investigation by the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. He sued The
Times, but dropped the case after ‘direct discussions with Rupert Murdoch,
owner of the parent company News International’ (p. 136). Now wouldn’t
that have been an interesting conversation to overhear
According to Duffy (p. 137) ‘tourism is often associated with an increase in
crime, prostitution and drugs.’ When the US Counter-Narcotics Unit visited
Customs at the Port of Belize, their ‘sniffer dogs were so overwhelmed by the
smell of drugs that they suffered sensory overload and were unable to func-
tion’ (p. 138). And there are various reports of individuals buying island
resorts using cash from drug trafficking. Fishermen near the Mexican border,
apparently, not uncommonly encounter floating bodies or if they are luck-
ier, floating bales of cocaine. This is known locally as ‘winning the sea lotto’
(p. 141). Presumably, the floating bodies have lost the sea lotto.
The core of Duffy’s thesis is developed on pp. 141153, ‘The Impact of the
Shadow State on Ecotourism Policy,’ which describes a series of dubious
development approvals and similar events. Duffy’s conclusion (p. 159) is that
tourists visit Belize to see reefs, rainforests and ruins, and also to drink, take
drugs and have sex; but because of links between tourism and the shadow
state, their mere presence creates a spiral of impacts on the social and natural
environment of which they are not aware and over which they have no
control. Ecotourism in Southern Belize, she says, can only be analysed in the
context of international financial institutions, environmental NGOs, logging
companies, and illegal traffic in drugs and wildlife.
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:q4sg4zRcsWQJ:www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/10072/8430/3/atriptoo.pdf+ashcroft+belize+americas+review&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=nz
[lprent; Pleeezeeeee - quote less monumentally. More links. ]
Sorry, the second link above should be
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=5SpfhmFHyjwC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=ashcroft+belize&source=web&ots=k1lVXGdjNB&sig=nGdTVaoFyC7F6KEL0iRwwk7kBEk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result
Iprent,
Sorry, I know you need to read everything but Tara is another much needed sentinel. Give her space.
[lprent; Pleeezeeeee - quote less monumentally. More links. ]
Its a developing story. If Keys vision for NZ is anything like Ashcrofts Belize .. agrarian feudalism with an urban hi-tech financial sector based largely in Auckland .. it marks a radical break with past bipartisan consensus. Such as it is ..
agrarian feudalism – I’m sure Fonterra shareholders want to go down that path.
Is there a breeding farm for nutters somewhere in NZ other than parliament seems their posts are becoming more frequent.
“agrarian feudalism – I’m sure Fonterra shareholders want to go down that path.”
.. while vineyard and orchard owners consider “creating their own labour force” from the outer Pacific Islands.
In Nth. Queensland it was called “blackbirding” – as slavery was being abolished in the US.
Have a look at
http://www.scoopit.co.nz
9.13 AM 8/9/08
“About half of this comes in donations in kind – polling, focus group work, consultancy work and at one point last year, rather bizarrely, L5,927.88 for ‘bottle openers”.
Apparently, the Daily Telegraph has never heard of branded merchandise.
Top quality “Waiters friends” could probably be sourced for about 5 pound each in bulk. Add another pound each for the cost of branding with a company or party logo, and you’ve got an excellent product.
Tara,
Don’t bother with HS. He’s a numbskull troll. Encountering anything resembling females with intelligence and he goes of on the nutter angle. Must be his age.
Was Mr Adam Dudding from the Sunday Star Times never taught it’s not polite to involve innocent people in assuming slander?
Surely Sherlock must be due a promotion for his fact finding skills?