THE CONSERVATIVE Party has been accused of accepting vast sums of money from three possibly illegal haven-based slush tunds, collectively worth over £200m, by a top business magazine. Most of this money has come from arms dealers, it is alleged.
The Tories consistently refuse to publish full auditable accounts. But the information it does make available shows that by March 1992, it claimed to be over E10m in the red. Given the cost of fighting the last general election, that figure may well have doubled since.
A single line lists donations of €19m for 1992, a sum fifteen times greater than that received local parties and members' subscriptions, which came to £1.2m.
Labour Party research shows that Britain's 1500 com. vanes gave we 0l2,90o in 1991 The best available estimate for 1992 is £2.9m, leaving E16m in unidentified income. Around €150m of Tory cash since 1979 April, 1993 No. 40 No need to put his hands in his own pocket: John Major has never been accounted for.
Without this money, the Tories could not have won the last four elections and probably wowa not even exist. ine labour movement should be asking just who is paying the piper.
An article by investigative joumalist Kevin Cahill in Busi993 a magazine rebruary claims the mystery cash represents interest received on principals abroad.
Cahill argues that Paul Judge, the party's recently appointed new director general, nas been hired with the specific brief of sorting out the financial position.
Judge is the multi-millionaire hnance whizz-kid behind the l management buy-out of the «vou arvision or cadburySchweppes. Three years later he sold up for twice what he paid, reputedly picking up f40m in the process. compulsory land registration. To this day, England and Wales are virtually alone in the industrialised in world in not enforcing compulsory registration of land, which facilitates landowners' tax avoidance.
The second fund is shrouded in mystery. Cahill says he was able to do no more than establish that it existed.
The third and largest fund is managed from London by NM Rothschild, and had grown to €200m by 1988. It was legally resident in Grand Cayman until 1990, when it switched to Switzerland after it began to attract journalistic interest.
"Most of the money that came into this fund appears to have come from people and organisations associated with the weapons trade. Why arms dealers in particular should indirectly subsidise the Conservative Party open conjecture, Cahill states.
Tim Smith MP, joint treas Office, wrote a three line rejoinder in the latest Busines Agr stating categorically: "No such funds But it is noticeable that while foreigners pay money to a British political party. Part of the answer is that the UK has become a tax haven for the super-rich. 4,500 wealthy individuals live i Britain without paying any tax at all, thanks to their so-called "non-domicile status'. The arrangement is entirely legal.
Dinner
Reportedly, John Major held a dinner for nine non-domicile billionaires who had pre viously donated to the Tories on the first anniversary of his becoming prime minister in November 1991.
Major assured those present that their privileged status would remain unchanged if the Conservatives won the forth. coming election, and tentative moves in this direction were duly scrapped.
Elaborate Tory funding scams have been going for decades. The party has operated a secret network of companies named after British rivers since 1949, which were allowed to receive donations from Wills, trusts and deeds of covenant at a time when political parties were banned from doing so.
Suffer Ittle children... Thatcher with lunch This position changed folperiod, handing ust £885,000 Make mine a large one: Denis Thatcher Well-known companies listing donations to the Conservative Party in their 1991 annual reports include: Allied Lyons (C110,000); ASDA Properly (C2,200); Barings (€100,000); British Airways (C10,000); Capital and Counties (€15,000); Charter Consolidated ((25,000); Coates Viyella (C7,500); General Accident (€35,000); GKN ((25,500); Guardian Royal Exchange (C35,000); Hepworth (C15,000); Higgs and Hill (€3,000); Highland Distillerics (C5,000); Inchcape (28,000); Kingfisher (Woolssorth)
(625,000); Kleinwort Benson (C25,000); Legal & General ((28,000);
from big business