UK Govt. Ministers and Donors: Who Benefits, the Lobbyist, or the Public?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's British Labour Party
is under attack and facing a crisis over donations to government ministers and
their various election campaigns.

His problem includes: the amounts, the
sources, and the deceitful manner in which some donations are made.

David
Abrahams is cited as an example of having friends in government as well as being a
lobbyist for Jewish/Israeli interests. 

Abrahams has been a vice chairman of the Jewish
Labor Movement and a board member of the Trade Union Friends of Israel.
Source: December 4, 2007. Forward

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Contemporary social commentators might be forgiven
if Brown's critics sound as though they are quoting authors such as Charles
Dickens and their concern about the conditions of the working class of which he
wrote in Victorian England. Sadly the truth of disproportionate representation
of the poor, and democracy for the wealthy, flourish today. For
example:

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that 3.8
million children in Britain live in poverty today – and this in the world’s
fourth richest country.

Behind these statistics is the reality of children
going to school hungry and without decent shoes, their education blighted
because of their social circumstances.
Source dated:  Socialist
Worker 8 December 2007 | issue 2080

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Abrahams is from Newcastle, in the North East of
England, a region of former coal mining, and dock workers, low wages, and a
workforce that would be exploited by the wealthy.

It was in this environment that
Abrahams accrued his wealth and also where he ran unsuccessfully for election in
1976 as a Labour Party candidate.

Although, from that election attempt he left
for posterity a photograph of himself and a copy of written promises that were
from a leaflet distributed to the electorate to encourage them to vote for him:
which they clearly ignored.  Source:David Abrahams'
1976 election leaflet.

Abrahams made donations to Labour
totaling more than £650,000, in the names of other people, which means that his
name would not have been linked to the funds that were deposited by his
'agents'. This was to become in part , evidence

of his contempt for any attempt by
government to demonstrate fairness and transparency in financial giving, for
example:

Abrahams had turned a small-time construction worker named Ray
Ruddick into the third-largest donor
to Britain’s governing party. The Mail on Sunday first reported that Abrahams
had secretly funneled political donations through much less wealthy
intermediaries. Source: Tuesday December 4,
2007. Forward

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Meanwhile, the publication Jewish Daily
Forward, or, simply Forward promotes itself as

the recognized
opinion-leader  (bold font in original) for American Jews.
and
The Forward is acknowledged by the journalism
community and prominent leaders in politics, business and the arts as an
unparalleled authority on issues that affect the Jewish world, today and
tomorrow.

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As Prime Minister Brown's "investigation" continues
to clear this financial scandal the public might wonder if the former leader of
the Labour Party, Tony Blair, will be invited to contribute to the dialogue of
alleged wrongdoing by Party members?

Is it the purpose of Prime Minster Brown to purge
the Labour Party of scandal, and thereby support fiscal transparency, or is it
to seek out fundamentalist power brokers who would compromise the ruling Labour
Party? This point has not previously been raised.

Neither has tony Blair's name been mentioned but we
might wonder if Blair's total support of President Bush was motivated, in part
by Blair's fundamentalist beliefs? And has this relationship somehow been a step
for Blair becoming a United Nations 'go-between' in the Middle East: for whose
benefit though? Israel's? America's current administration?

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