Tuesday, 27 October 2009

Lib Dem PPC in Bribery Scandal

A
publicity stunt
by Liberal Democrat
York Outer
PPC Madeleine Kirk has spectacularly backfired. A week ago she put out this statement:

"Our party is the natural home for students. We are the only party to oppose tuition fees, we are the leading campaigners on the environment and civil liberties and we are calling for the investment that will make it easier for all young people, students or otherwise, to get a job.

"It is clear from the record number of people we have signed up this year that there is a growing
momentum behind the Lib Dems locally and an excitement about the coming election."

However all is not as it seems. Eagle-eyed
student rag
hack Peter Campbell has
blown the lid off
what could become a highly embarrassing scandal for the Kirk and Liberal Youth. It seems local party funds have been used to pay for membership to the Liberal Democrats for students signed up in Fresher's Week:

Offering free membership at Freshers’ Fayre radically increased the number of people who joined the society by a factor of ten.

Previous years have seen roughly 10 members overall.


Essentially membership is given away for free in order to get people to sign up and appear to be really joining. As
one York student
told their Nouse student paper:

"If this is the only way the Lib Dems can get members, I really feel sorry for them. Labour and Tories on campus regularly get 60+ and 70+ members respectively signing up at freshers fair annually and paying a membership fee. You have to wonder how committed their members will be if they weren’t prepared to pay a couple of quid to sign up."

Kirk has said; "It certainly wasn’t bribery" but it is hard to see how this can possibly be true. It's almost a textbook example of it. Free membership to a political party, paid for by other party members, all you have to do is put your mark upon a sheet. It's not just bribery, but lies and spin of the lowest kind.

TB wonders what else Ms Kirk has lied about?

While Kirk has attempted to cover up the issue by denying her own money was used, others have not kept stuck quite so closely to the line. As Campbell reports:

"Councillor Tom Holvey, who was on the Lib Dem stall at Freshers’ Fayre, said however that it would help boost York’s profile nationally with the Lib Dems. “It will definitely give York more kudos”, he said.

The money used came from individual donations from the local party, including councillors and local members. The total amount pledged would have covered the cost of 150 members of the party. Even though Kirk herself did not pledge money, she was aware of the deal and fully supported the donations. All the money pledged has been paid, with the excess “going into the kitty in case we wanted to do something like this again.”

The agreement to donate the money was reached between Craig Martin, Lib Dem chair at the university, and a number of local councillors last summer over an end-of-term BBQ.

Martin calls the money ‘sponsorship’, saying “we have never had enough members.
I was always having to treble numbers when telling people how many we had, just to make us look like a worthwhile party. We decided to try this.”

“It is the best thing in the world for me to come into a society that was about to die and completely turn it around.”


It looks like Craig Martin is destined for a fast-track career within the Lib Dems with moral scruples such as those. First he admits to hoovering up dodgy money, then lying in the past about membership and then blowing his own trumpet. Cowley Street must be so proud.

The whole thing is a complete and utter PR disaster, Kirk has been sorely humiliated being seen to attempt to buy a campaign team. The arrogance of putting out a release singing the praises of the recruitment drive, a sentiment also adopted by the national Liberal Youth organisation, beggars belief.

If further proof of the fact Liberal Democrats are liars was ever needed, let this be yet another example.

21 comments:

Urban Tory
said...

FAIL

Phil North
said...

The biggest deception is not the bribery - it is Madeleine Kirk saying "we are the leading campaigners on Civil Liberties" - um no you are not - your very illiberal. The only party that truly knows the meaning of Classical Liberalism is the modern Conservative Party.

Binny
said...

"Bribery"? Oh please.

Youth membership is already heavily subsidised in most parties and I seem to remember CF offering free membership across the board not so long ago. If the main thing putting students off getting involved in politics is a £1 joining fee then it makes perfect sense to remove that barrier.

LY also paid for whistles, postcards, carbon offsetting and goodness knows what else. Was THAT bribery too?

You really are a bear of very little brain sometimes.

Chris Lovell
said...

You should always check that your own people are whiter than white when you put out a story like this TB. In this case they're not.

Why don't you ask Leeds CF if their new members paid the full whack? Think you'll find that they were 'sponsored' by the local party too. Hope you'll be condemning them too.

Anonymous said...

Ahem, haven't they also gone back on their commitment to oppose tuition fees?

Matt Jones said...

While we're doing PPC scandals, nothing about the Tory in Cornwall who's been reduced to smearing her opponent? https://www.libdemvoice.org/tories-st-austell-newquay-candidate-in-smearstupidity-storm-16651.html

Tory Dan said...

Interesting male to female composition there...

Greg said...

To be honest I fail to see the problem. I am a member of the Conservatives and when I paid my membership I think it was about 5 quid as I'm 22. I believe that the party probably makes a loss on that and it is therefore probably subsidised by the payments of other members.


Less students would join the COnservatives if they had to pay the full amount. I can see your point that it is rather sad that the Liberals have to give membership away for free but really I can't see that the Conservatives are much different by offering cheap membership

Gez Smith said...

The amusing thing about the whole 'record breaking recruitment year' thing being claimed by Liberal Youth is that we never used to keep any records of freshers sign ups from year to year, and certainly not on a 'branch by day' basis.

So records over the last three years may, perhaps, have been broken if such details were recorded, but beyond that there's just no way of knowing if it's true or not. That's why every year was 'the best year on record'.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, cos that's what bribery is. #shitjournalismfail

Mark Reckons
said...

TB - This seems like a bit of a non-story to me and I would say that whichever party was reported to have done it. Indeed it seems from some of your other commenters that the Tories have been known to subsidise student membership fairly heavily too.

In fact, you could easily argue that allowing free or heavily subsidised membership for students to a political party is a very good thing. Money is usually tight for students and getting more young people actively involved in politics is surely a good thing?

Phil said...

The pitch at getting a job at the Sun is coming on nicely bear.

While "bribery" and "scandal" are a bit strong I think you are well aware of that. Nice to see the dead ducks clucking at this.

PS @10.42 who the fuck uses hashtags in a comment? Get fucking grip. Do you use them in real live. When your mum pours your milk and spills a drop do you say #badmotherfail? Freak!!!!!!

Tory Bear
said...

Mark,

While I am sure Party membership is subsidised from the centre to five pounds, it's the deception and lies by Kirk that are the problem. There is no mention of the fact that she was reduced to paying fees for people in order to get them to sign up and then went onto to boast as if there has been conversions of damsascan proportions at the freshers fair with people flooding to join - with the assumption allowed to stay in place that they had paid.

Of course Parties give away various bits of flashy tat to get people to come over to their stalls but there is a big difference between doing that and actually paying their shilling for them.

TB

Tory Outcast
said...

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Conservatives at York Uni and live with Craig Martin so have a few vested interests.

Not sure if the whole bribery/scandal line is justified but whatever else is the case it just strikes me as pathetic.

They got maybe 30 more members than the campus tories despite the latter charging the £4 fee. The Lib Dems are an irrelevance on campus and once this story has blown over they will resume that role.

If someone can't cough up a few quid for membership it seems unlikely they are going to come to meetings and very unlikely they will get out of bed on a Saturday morning in the Yorkshire rain to campaign. A pointless waste of money.

Anonymous said...

Tory Bear
You have failed to answer the point above about the sponsoring of CF members in Leeds by local party members.
Do you condemn them or are you a hypocrite?

Tory Bear
said...

Am awaiting the facts before passing comment.

However as I said before it was the hypocrisy of the press release and fanfare and lies that were the problem.

Will just have to see.

Chris Lovell
said...

Well if you want a hand TB, take a look at this:

https://christopherlovell.blogspot.com/2009/10/leeds-conservative-future-in-bribery.html

bryonywilford
said...

As far as I can see there is no bribery, just completely subsidised party membership. Think how much the "cheap tat" that someone else mentioned is normally given out at Freshers Fairs adds up to, and if you put that money into funding the memberships instead, it certainly seems some students appreciate that more, and are more likely to sign up.

Equally it is a fact that many more students signed up than ever before (and yes, I don't think detailed records are kept so that will be in comparison to recent recollection), but the stall was much busier too, hence the vibe of increased interest in general. But how you make out anyone was lying about this, or that the press release was somehow hypocritical I don't know, nobody ever hid either of these facts. It's not "dodgy money" either - it was donated by councillors and other party activists from their own personal funds. I don't see the problem.

Those students who signed up are unlikely to have done so just because it was free, and will now receive a lot more information - when the Lib Dems have this permanent problem of a media that only reports on the 2 biggest parties, this will help. I also think it will make people more likely to get involved in local campaigning. If not involved, at least they will know what is happening in the area.

Anonymous said...

Phil North said: "The only party that truly knows the meaning of Classical Liberalism is the modern Conservative Party."

Claiming 'Classical Liberalism' as your own is the small rhetorical trick of trying to claim temporal precedence - it simply doesn't hold or matter (and in this case, is quite possibly not even true).

As for Anonymous': "...haven't they also gone back on their commitment to oppose tuition fees?"

A simple answer is 'no'.

We just can't afford it as quickly as we'd like because, as I am sure you'll agree, Labour have screwed the economy so much...

Anonymous said...

"If someone can't cough up a few quid for membership it seems unlikely they are going to come to meetings and very unlikely they will get out of bed on a Saturday morning in the Yorkshire rain to campaign."

Spare cash a must for Tory activism then?

Tory Outcast
said...

@Anon 14:03

Ptch cheap shot (no pun intended)

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