Blair's New Labour; Still More Scandalous Sleaze Surfaces ...

Tony Blair's ruling New Labour party is in debt to the tune of £22 million due to a drought in donations, which in turn is mainly due to the ongoing and ever escalating, already massive police investigation into his government's Peerages for sale scandal.

So, how best to handle such a serious, cash shortfall situation, eh?

Try this for size -- from today's Daily Mail.

Sleazy Labour's £2m raid on council tax funds

By Tim Shipman

Police have launched a neinvestigation into Labour sleaze after a whistleblower revealed the party is creaming off at least £2m a year of taxpayers' money directly into party coffers.

Tony Blair has ordered thousands of his local councillors to hand over hundreds of pounds each from their publicly-funded allowances to Labour slush funds for electioneering and party propaganda.

More here...
Councillors' payments and how Labour is benefiting

The scam - also under investigation by sleaze watchdogs has been branded a "national disgrace", an "outrageous abuse of taxpayers' money" and an "affront to democracy".

News that their money is being used to line Labour's pockets will enrage council tax payers who have seen their bills soar as town halls have been starved of cash.

Council tax has more than doubled since Labour came to power. In Sunderland it rose last year by 4.9 per cent, double the rate of inflation.

Labour members quietly passed a resolution at their party conference in September calling on all councillors to hand over a percentage of their allowances direct from the council payroll to fill the financial black hole.

The party is saddled with debts totalling £22 million as a result of the cash for peerages scandal, which has led to a drought in donations. The allowances, introduced by Labour in 1998, were originally intended to be used to help councillors carry out their duties for voters, rather than for party political purposes.

But those who refuse to pay the levy have now been threatened with disciplinary action by Labour whips.

The multi-million pound funding scandal came to light after the former leader of Sunderland council resigned from the party in disgust earlier this week after refusing to pay £215 - a three per cent levy on his £7,106 councillor's allowance - to Labour bosses in Sunderland.

Bryn Sidaway has now reported the matter to Northumbria police. He told the Daily Mail: 'It is a national disgrace. 'We are talking about millions of pounds a year going into the Labour Party war chest via the taxpayer - but without them even knowing.

This is their money. They elect local councillors in the hope that it will improve their lives - not to fund Labour's bid to be re-elected.'

The scandal goes nationwide.

Documents obtained by the Daily Mail show that, in October, Labour bosses sent a memo to every council group in England ordering them to "establish a levy on councillors for group funds, preferably collected through the council's payroll deduction scheme". All councillors were then ordered to sign an authorisation slip to deduct the money from their allowances at source.

Shocked?

You shouldn't be.

Since when has Blair and/or his crew of cabinet cronies cared about cutting corners when it comes to keeping within the law?

Certainly not when aiding and abetting his counterfeit-cowboy compadre from Crawford to flout even international law, by illegally invading Iraq.

So surely seeing such a much closer to home, straightforward & so simple cash 'scam' now being exposed shouldn't come as much of a surprise. At least not to those of us fortunate enough to be blessed with even a single ounce of common sense, intelligence and/or insight.

Meanwhile, some poor pensioners are still being imprisoned for not forking out to help finance such scandalous council-tax shenanigans.

Blair would do well to remember that it's not so long since the great British public took to the streets - literally rioting - to bring about the beginning of the political end of Mrs Mad-Maggie Thatcher. And that that successful 'citizen-coup' was completely, council tax related.

Read the rest of the Mail's relevant report.