Money goes to money

Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, is set to become the richest member of the Cabinet after it emerged that he is in line for a £17m windfall from the imminent sale of his own company.  Hunt, who is said to be currently worth £4.2m, would overtake Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Defence, as the wealthiest Cabinet minister. Hammond is worth £8.2m.

Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of the public service trade union Unison, said: “This is the man who has been let loose to slash the heart out of our NHS, and he can pocket £17m at a stroke. How can a man of such wealth possibly understand the problems of ordinary people or the value that we place on our public services?”

In 2012, the consultancy Wealth-X listed the wealthiest Cabinet ministers.
The top 10 were:

£9.6m Lord Strathclyde (no longer in Cabinet)
£8.2m Philip Hammond
£4.8m William Hague
£4.8m Jeremy Hunt
£4.5m Caroline Spelman (no longer in Cabinet)
£4.5m George Osborne
£3.8m David Cameron
£3.2m Francis Maude
£2.9m Dominic Grieve
£2.2m Andrew Mitchell

Buying Influence

"Two hundred grand to 250 is premier league … what you would get is, when we talk about your donations the first thing we want to do is get you at the Cameron/Osborne dinners. You do really pick up a lot of information and when you see the prime minister, you're seeing David Cameron, not the prime minister. But within that room everything is confidential – you can ask him practically any question you want. If you're unhappy about something, we will listen to you and put it into the policy committee at No 10 – we feed all feedback to the policy committee." - the now Tory party's ex-co-treasurer Peter Cruddas, who built a £750m fortune through financial spread-betting

This offer of influence was made even though Cruddas knew the money would come from a fund in Liechtenstein that was not eligible to make donations under electoral law. Options said to have been discussed included creating a British subsidiary or using UK employees as conduits. The overseas clients were, in fact, reporters posing as wealth fund executives who had made clear they wished to develop contacts with the prime minister and other senior ministers to further their business. The Sunday Times claims to have hired Sarah Southern, a former Cameron aide now working as a lobbyist, who advised that making a "huge donation" was the best way to gain access to senior government figures.

The Loony Right

The Conservatives are fighting a claim that a businessman did not know what he was doing when he left the party £8.3 million in his will.

London's High Court heard Branislav Kostic was "deluded and insane" when he willed his money in the 1980s.

He made the will after saying Margaret Thatcher was "the greatest leader of the free world in history" and that she would save the world from the "satanic monsters and freaks".

His son says his father lacked "testamentary capacity" because of his delusional and paranoid mental illness.

Clare Montgomery QC said the Conservatives "only benefited because the testator became mentally ill".

Mr Simmonds , QC for the Conservative Prty , said that while it was accepted that Mr Kostic had a delusional disorder it was not accepted that this made him incapable of making a proper will.

I think Socialist Courier readers will concur with all who say that this individual must have indeed been crazy to believe and trust in Magaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party .