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Labour treads a carefull path

nobody | 23.03.2005 14:20

Getting carefull with election looming...

Politics in Brief

The Labour Party has secretly rejected a donation of £500,000 from a lobbyist with a colourful list of overseas clients.

Party officials keen to rectify a £5 million shortfall in its general election fund initially decided to accept the gift from Anthony Bailey, whose clients include BAE Systems, the defence firm under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, and businesses owned by Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born industrialist with legal problems in France.

However, political parties have been banned since 2000 from accepting overseas donations and background checks on Mr Bailey revealed little in the way of a personal fortune.

A spokesman for Labour declined to comment.

source: Times, 14 March 2005

nobody

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Sunday Times stitch up on Anthony Bailey

04.05.2005 13:46

It seems like yet another Sunday Times stitch up job since from what I can see no other paper picked the story up which you would have thought would be the case if it was true and News International now have on their website at the start of the article "This article is subject to a legal complaint".

I really get sick and tired on this sort of extremely poor journalism from what used to me a serious paper. They mention Anthony Bailey's wrongful arrest when the same paper explosed the mad guy making the allegations against him was a fraud and imposter. They also say at the end of the article that the Labour Party denied the story and even quoted the alleged party leak who allegedly made the allegation saying they have no evidence to say the story is true. They seem to be blaming him for BAE Systems and Shell although Anthony Bailey's involvement with the two companies was for a painting exhibition of Prince Charles and Prince Khalid according to his the exhibition's website.

This kind of journalism is real gutter rubbish and why on earth they devoted half a page to it just illustrates that the Sunday Times is getting more and more like the News of the World or The Sun. I hope Bailey sues them although the might of this foreign owned media group which has too much power in this country as it is allowing them to rubbish people at will is something that we all should be extremely concerned about. James Quinn - London

James Quinn