Whats all the fuss about – surely companies make donations to political parties all the time?
Companies do indeed make political donations, sometimes – as in the case of Enron – to more than one party at a time. Firms in heavily-regulated industries, such as Enron, see it as a legitimate part of the political “lobbying” process. The company bosses want an opportunity to meet constiuency MPs and government ministers, and if that means buying a table at a fund-raising gala then so be it. The parties need the cash to fund election campaigns. As Labour has sought to distance itself from its traditional backers in the trade unions, it has increasingly sought out business support. Indeed, Tony Blair has often paraded Labour’s new friends in big business as an example of how it has shaken-off its past reliance on the unions. It is very unlikely that a row would have blown up over Enron’s relatively small UK political donations if the company had not collapsed in such spectacular and apparently corrupt circumstances. So what exactly are Labour being accused of? The Conservatives – who
