In a ludicrous statement, the Crown Prosecution Service argues that Conservative Party agents and candidates did not dishonestly submit false returns – because the Conservative Party told them it was legal.
That really is what the decision says. I quote:
“However, it is clear agents were told by Conservative Party headquarters that the costs were part of the national campaign and it would not be possible to prove any agent acted knowingly or dishonestly. Therefore we have concluded it is not in the public interest to charge anyone referred to us with this offence.”
So the Conservative Party broke electoral law, that is not in question and they have been fined for it by the Electoral Commission. But no individual may be prosecuted because Conservative Party HQ told them to do it? Their defence was that they are collectively all crooks, and this was accepted by the “independent” Crown Prosecution Service?
On top of which, the Crown Prosecution Service also colludes with the Tory Party by repeating the lie the Tories have assiduously spread that the allegations only related to the “Battlebus”. Of course for generations every Party Leader has campaigned from a “Battlebus”, singular, and the public are familiar with it. The Tory meme then goes everyone does that, why is it illegal?
In fact this was about something much bigger. Not one bus, but scores of buses, bussing activists and campaign directors in to marginal seats where they were also in paid for accommodation. The CPS statement refers to no allegations at all except a “Battlebus”, singular. By repeating this Tory lie in presenting the issue, the Crown Prosecution Service prove beyond any doubt that they are directly in collusion with the Tory Party.
It’s disgusting but not surprising … I would have been surprised if they did the right thing and prosecuted them. What’s the next move ? I honestly can’t see us ever getting justice for the lies and paedophilia. I know it is Pesamistic but that is what we have come to. The papers lie and cheat also and brainwash the masses.keep them dampened down and subservient with false news and computer games.
They will be putting out frequencies next to control us all.
Fluoride,flue jabs, chemical trails etc all part about control to detract what is really going on in the world.
Oooookaaay….
Well said. It’s a disgrace. This ‘enquiry’ may as well have been carried out by Tory Party HQ. In fact it probably was.
Beyond belief hardly begins to cover it.
Remembering today the parents of Elliott Johnson who committed suicide on a railway line at Sandy station following bullying by Mark Clarke, of the Tory Battle Bus infamy.
Cameron, Grant Shapps and Lord Feldman, party chairmen, Lynton Crosby, Lady Pidding and others were involved in the cover up. The partei passed the case on to Clifford Chance who gave it a coat of whitewash.
Theresa is in a photo in the link shown congratulating Mark Clarke on the Rochester by election win. She is not wearing her f off pearls on this occasion. The Mail’s investigative reporting on this case throughout is to be commended.
The Prime Minister, the Tatler Tory, his Conservative party Battlebus mistress and a VERY revealing election expenses leak
In an email Mark Clarke tells MPs his battlebus will not affect election expenses
The party was fined a record £70,000 last week by the Electoral Commission
It failed to record £275,000 spent during 2015 election and at three by-elections
Clarke was interviewed by Commission inquiry but not accused of wrongdoing
Denied any suggestion of wrongdoing concerning the RoadTrip campaign
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4327812/Prime-Minister-Tatler-Tory-Conservative-party-mistress.html#
So does this set precedent for everyone to knowingly break the law and simply say somebody else told me to do it so I am not guilty???
Clearly not, “Woman jailed for six months for begging for 50p”
Can there be Judicial Review on such decisions?
Do you know why no other party had a serious go at the Tories over this? Because they were all at it.
Do you have proof, or is this yet another of your idle slurs?
It’s another idle slur in all probability. But it is all that defenders of the extremely dishonest party have as a defence, really. The last election looks as though it was actually bought, more or less. We’d be better off back in the days of ‘Rotten boroughs’.
They were fined £20,000 for undeclared spending.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/25/labour-fined-20000-for-undeclared-election-spending-including-for-ed-stone
Was it a mistake or did someone knowingly submit a false report? Legal or illegal? If a complaint had been made the police would have had to investigate and the CPS would have had to decide.
Other parties have been holding back because it was under investigation. They won’t be holding back now.
your rationale is completely and utterly deluded……..they are doing as well, so I can do it……eeeeeh.
you are missing the point somewhat.
Sadly, I think there’s probably the ring of truth in this. While I doubt Labour have the resources or the nous to cheat on the scale of the Tories, I’d be very surprised if they didn’t break electoral rules when they could. I think Craig’s written here before about their “treating” in past elections?
proof it, you’ve got past comments wrong and should really hold your mettle when you don’t understand the issues involved.
there is no point in sending another petition were hundreds have failed. This needs civil disobedience on a grand scale. As we can’t get the Conservative protection services to act in the protection of democratic accountability, what will be their next target that does not deserve justice.
Increasingly feeling insecure and abandoned by these cheats who broke the law and got away with it. Anybody coming into her sight please be sure to make the 45 deg. salute, she deserves it.
We have even more in common with North Kotea now!
don’t tell that to May-Son-fascist or you will be at your own year zero very soon…
It is a very disappointing day. Proving the British Tory Party is totally CORRUPT and blatant in their lies.They are creating a corrupt election leading to a corrupt government.SHAME ON THEM
So “A big boy did it and run away” is an acceptable defence now?
Well fancy that, trebles all round!
…and a few Knighthoods, no doubt!
If they thought that what they were doing was not a bit ‘iffy’, then why were the invoices sent to the home address of a party worker, rather than to Conservative HQ.??? Stinks to high heaven. Why can’t the CPS prosecute the party official who issued the command that everything was fine ??? I didn’t INTEND to drive at 33 mph (so years ago) but was still prosecuted for exceeding the speed limit. Ignorance is no defence, never has been. It is the responsibility of the Agent, as I understand the case, to ensure that all is done correctly and according to the law.
I was led to believe ignorance was not a defence
May is speaking in Gedling on Sky. She is jeering at Jeremy currently. Any questions for the Prime Minister from a selected journo?
She had a softball when she finished and questions were taken. I didn’t catch the questioner’s name. ‘Was it a waste of police time?’
At the start, she asked where ‘Andy’ was as she couldn’t see in the lights. Was that a prearranged question?
She batted the three questions on expenses away and hit them into the proverbial long grass.
Also, if the media refuse to question this ruling, does that not also demonstrate (as some of us suspected already), that major media outlets like the BBC/Sky News are also colluding with Tory election fraud? Or at least suppressing it.
Yes! As long suspected by certain sources.
Battlebuses
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Battlebuses
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Battlebuses
Battlebuses
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Battlebuses
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Battlebuses
All have driven a hole through Justice
Can a citizen or citizens point them in the right direction and explain the Electoral law . This fraud and corruption on a Conservative Party scale. This Tory Government should be kicked out of office now. They mean to win by fair means or foul. They have absolutely no principles or morals. Power is their God.
Sorry Anne, there isn’t a single citizen to be found here, unless you mean EU citizens, this is the country of subjected people who don’t care much about democratic practises and fairness anymore, as long as they get their daily dose of Murdcock with their pint and chips.
Common mistake ctually we became citizens in 1983
https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-citizenship
One of the reasons our government gets away with the things that they do is because the people assume they’ve already lost
Yes clearly there was wrong doing and this defence is no defence at all. More Tory lies to fog and cloud the truth and the truth is that collectively the Tory party are guilty of electoral fraud. If this was a Labour government found guilty of such, there would be a hue and cry to have the election nullified and a new election with those specific MPs and the hierarchy of the party held accountable. A fine? That’s a joke when so much has been harmed and the political life of a nation has been deliberately harmed.
The tories are crooks, pure and simple!
Its like everything If the Chief Executive?s in all sorts of businesses Banks, big Business were punished a lot of wrong doing would stop ( I think if they were in danger of having their right arm cut off} only by punishing the top people will wrong doing stop.
Well ,it is quite plain that whoever told them that was lying and therefore that person should be charged or the person at the top of the Tory party ,the Prim minister .
Ummm the CPS (or its predecessor) came into being in England & Wales in 1933 IIRC. Right after Churchill got rid of grand juries because of the incovenience factor they caused when they decided to prosecute someone the state wished to protect.
The purpose of the CPS is to initiate prosecutions which are in the interests of the state and prevent ones which are contrary to the interests of the state.
Prosecuting 20 tory MPs and therefore casting the legality of the Brexit referendum (and all that’s followed on from that) into question is not in the interests of the state.
Simple as that.
Surprised you’re this naive Craig, the very last thing the CPS are about is “justice” or the rule of law. The CPS is about protecting the interests of the state/crown. Nothing else.
Hence the name I suppose
Yup.
Completely corrupt, from top to bottom.
The CPS is notoriously incompetent, but that alone doesn’t explain their continually favouring elite interests.
Were it simple incompetence then they’d occasionaly err on the people’s side.
No you’re not getting the point, either you or shatnersrug.
The CPS is not institutionally corrupt – there may be some individual corruption but the organisation does EXACTLY what its supposed to do.
The CROWN Prosecution Service acts in the interests of the state/crown. The state/crown in England & Wales are NOT the people in any way.
In political terms if there was a 180 degree reversal and it was Labour who had done this, the CPS would behave in exactly the same way. In fact I’m sure they’ve exonerated much worse from New Labour’s wars.
The system is corrupt. By design. When people say things like “one law for them, another for us” then its the CPS they’re referring to, even if they don’t know it. Doesn’t matter who’s in power, the CPS do their bidding.
You’re wrong, at least on one level.
Their function will be to support elite interests.
I agree.
But say for example you had a Labour party in power who were Corbynite rather than Blairite for example then that would not serve elite interests.
The party in power is not the same as elite interest.
I’d say a Corbynite party would be prosecuted.
The key then is what sort of party you are, not that you’re in power.
Though you’re not likely to get to power were you a party who opposed elite interests.
New Labour was obviously a very big supporter of core elite interests.
That’s the whole point.
Labour couldn’t get a decent hearing in media until Tory Tony arrived upon the scene.
Who appoints the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions)?
Answer is the Attorney General which is a political appointment.
The current AG is someone who has been described by a local retiring tory as :
“A third rate conveyancer who I wouldn’t employ to sell my dog’s kennel”. I’m informed that there was a deal more “f” words in there when he had his “private” diatribe.
If it was an existential threat (like Scots indy) to the people who actually own the country then you’d be right. The rest of it is just political, although IIRC it was Thatcher who made it semi-political first. Or maybe Heath started that?
Anyway the CPS acts in the interests of the state – whoever they are. It’d be an interesting conflict if the interests of the state wildly diverged from the interests of the current govt. English “democracy” has ironed out most of those “bumps” over the years by boundary changes so the govt (either of them) is the state.
Your “elite interest” is simply a generation who’ve been taught to think that way. Pretty much anyone born after 1960 in the UK thinks differently about society than the people born before.
If we’re progressing to “deep state” then while I have no doubt something will exist after hundreds of years I don’t know what it is, nor will I ever probably.
“If it was an existential threat (like Scots indy) to the people who actually own the country then you’d be right.”
But there are other things like that.
There’s the financial system. There are the Intel services. Radical land reform perhaps, Renationalisation etc
Couldn’t change those things with a simple majority in parliament, though technically it should be possible.
You’d need the agreement of elites to do something like that.
Brexit too.
“Your “elite interest” is simply a generation who’ve been taught to think that way. Pretty much anyone born after 1960 in the UK thinks differently about society than the people born before.”
I don’t know what this means. What way do younger people think differently about society?
The problem with your account is that it doesn’t explain the continuity of policy.
We don’t whipsaw between socialism and neoliberalism as we switch between Labour and Conservative govts, for example.
In fact there’s quite a similarity between the post war policies of both Labour and Conservative govts and between New Labour and Conservative from the Thatcher period on.
A fundamental consensus. The differences are quite marginal.
What explains that.
I think if you look at the history you’ll see that radical changes in policy really only take place when they’re invoked by economic necessity, internal or external.
We’re heading towards such a time, but not quite there yet.
Edinburgh City Council SNP Group are saying that their talks with Labour over forming a coalition are being hampered by Labour MP Ian Murray and Labour MSP Daniel Johnson. The SNP are saying that the two are wanting Labour to be junior partners in a coalition with the Tory group.
Unfortunately, reel guid, there’s little or no difference between the Red and Blue Tory. Murray’s jacket is on a shaky peg, trying to appease his Tory voters, while trying not to offend his labour voters. Weasel, focusing on his own job security.
JOML
He is in a lose-lose situation in Edinburgh South as you say.
But if he is trying to influence the talks in order to subject Edinburgh’s voters to council rule by hard right Tories then that is his poorest form yet.
So how do you think the actions of Tory Party HQ stand in relation to the law on Conspiracy?
“An agreement to commit a crime involving fraud or dishonesty is both a statutory conspiracy and a conspiracy to defraud.” – from http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/inchoate_offences/
Then surely if the CPS therfore states that each individual was told by conservative central office that the battle buses were part of the national campaign, then it is CCO that has broken the law. If this is correct then when will we see charges being brought against those responsible?
Has anyone heard a peep from May on foreign policy?
How will she respond to this? And where’s the usually loquacious Fallon?
‘Nato asks UK to send more troops to Afghanistan
9th May 2017
Nato has asked Britain to consider sending more troops to Afghanistan, the BBC understands.
Currently there are about 500 British troops in the country, providing security in Kabul and training at the Afghan Officer Academy. The BBC understands the request was made within the last few weeks.
Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is due to meet Theresa May at Downing Street on Wednesday and is expected to discuss the subject.
The request for more troops comes as the US considers increasing its military presence in the country. The US military and state department are recommending sending at least 3,000 more US troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, US media report.
There are 13,000 Nato troops currently in the country, 8,400 of them US.
US combat operations against the Taliban officially ended in 2014, but special forces have continued to provide support to Afghan troops.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39855407
She met Stoltenberg this morning at No 10. Will we be asked? In October, it will be 16 years ago since this horror was transacted.
It’s probably as well to think things through before alleging collusion. Criminal charges, as you know, carry the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ stadard of proof, and many, if not most, also carry the need for intent to commit a crime to be proven. These include, for example, car theft and assault, and range far beyond electoral law.
You may argue that ‘intent’ should not a be necessary criterion, and indeed in charges such as dangerous driving, it is not. But as a defence against malicious or mistaken prosecution, it is extremely valuable for the innocent individual caught in the travails of the law.
In this case, where the individual candidates and agents were likely told by HQ that a battle bus would be visiting and that expenses would be taken care of by HQ, it is extremely difficult to see how a jury could convict on the grounds that intent to commit a crime was proven beyond reasonable doubt. So the decision by the CPS not to prosecute is absolutely reasonable.
A case might be made for changing electoral law to make it more rigorous, especially where party organisations are concerned. But as things stand, an allegation of collusion between the CPS and the Tory party – given the law and the facts of the case -is just ridiculous.
A very dangerous precedent.
‘I was only following orders’
How can the Nuremberg defence be acceptable?
Any fines are clearly factored into the budgets of a party with money to burn
Good piece by Jonathan Cook. He is observing very closely all the way from Nazareth what is going on.
Media can’t hide that they’re in bed with May
10 May 2017
This is the first British general election in decades in which there is anything approaching a real political choice. For that reason, even the most liberal elements within the corporate media are jettisoning the pretence of neutrality and objectivity. The stakes are simply too high.
/..
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-05-10/media-cant-hide-that-theyre-in-bed-with-may/
We really are living in a fascist state. Think about it.
Be interesting to hear what Michael Crick is saying
Cameron was right “We are all in it together” The contempt for the law is stunning.