The Fanonite

So, the poodle has made another mess. For the first time in British history, a serving Prime Minister was interviewed by the Police over allegations of distributing honours for cash. The interview was conveniently timed with the release of the findings of the investigation into Princess Diana and Dodi El Fayed’s deaths.

The only thing that is surprising about this news is its timing. It has been well known for nearly ten years that the government has been rewarding generous donors to the party with peerages and positions. As I had shown earlier in an investigation of the lobby group Labour Friends of Israel, its main fundraiser, Michael Levy, and one of the donors, David Sainsbury, were not only ennobled, but also appointed to questionable positions with obvious conflicts of interests.

Let us start with Lord Levy. Here is an introduction to the man from my earlier investigation:

Michael Abraham Levyis a former chairman of the Jewish Care Community Foundation, a member of the Jewish Agency World Board of Governors, and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust. According to Andrew Porter of The Business, Levy expressed his willingness “to raise large sums of money for the party” which led to a “tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel”. The partnership proceeded as Levy started inviting potential donors for tennis at his palatial home where Tony Blair would join them for a set or two. Levy would then proceed to ask the guests for donations after Blair had left. The genius of Levy’s fundraising strategy ensured that most of Labour’s election funds came from private sources, rather than its traditional source – the trade unions, thereby weakening their say over policy.

Levy’s investment eventually paid off, with Blair’s accession to power. The reward was not long in coming as Levy was ennobled and subsequently retained as a “special envoy” to the Middle-East, leading predictably to the development of a strong pro-Israel line. Given the fact that Levy has both a business and a house in Israel and his son Daniel used to work for Yossi Beilin – the former Justice Minister of Israel – speaks of a serious conflict of interest, especially when he is the man assigned by Blair to negotiate impartially with Palestinians and Israelis. The fact that Levy acted as a fundraiser for former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak casts further doubt on his capacity for impartiality.

In his book Labour Party Plc., David Osler is incredulous at the “astonishing appointment” of Levy as the PM’s special envoy to the Middle East giving his “open espousal of Zionism and ties to the Israeli establishment” which “automatically compromise him in Arab eyes”. Osler points out that “there is nothing on his curriculum vitae that indicates any experince relevant to this delicate diplomatic role in a perpetually crisis-ridden region”. The former record company executive was described as “schlock merchant” by his close friend Pete Waterman but given the roster to bands he signed — Alivn Stardust, Bad Manners and the Darts — Osler observes that “even that description grossly overestimates the man’s musical tastes”. (p.59)

Moving on now to Lord David Sainsbury. In September 1997 Sainsbury gave Labour its biggest ever single donation, on October 3 1997 he was made a life peer by Blair and a year later Minister for Science. Mark Seddon, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, told the BBC, “In any other country I think a government minister donating such vast amounts of money and effectively buying a political party would be seen for what it is, a form of corruption of the political process.” Seddon said it was causing Labour to lose members amid criticism from the grassroots that the party was now “in the pockets of the powerful and the rich.”

Sainsbury is also a member of the cabinet biotechnology committee, Sci-Bio, responsible for national policy on GM crops and foods, and as such is a key adviser to Blair on GM technology.

In the wake of the scandal, although Sainsbury has finally had to resign, but this comes nearly 8 years too late, as the conflict of interest was obvious from day one. According to Spinwatch:

Through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation Lord Sainsbury has also put millions into the study of plant genetics. Gatsby gives approximately 2 million a year to the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Centre, which does research into GM crops. Lord Sainsbury helped found the Laboratory in 1987 and his Gatsby Foundation remains its principal source of funding, although it also receives over 800,000 a year from the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) , for which Sainsbury is responsible in his ministerial role. Its grant has increased several fold during Sainsbury’s time as minister.

Like his biotech investments, his Gatsby contributions have been administered through a blind trust run by his solicitor Judith Portrait since Sainsbury became UK Science Minister. Portrait is also a Gatsby trustee. Although he does not attend Gatsby meetings or make decisions, Sainsbury retains the power to appoint and dismiss its trustees.

For some, the choice of an unelected biotech investor and food industrialist to be Science Minister, based within the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), is more than emblematic of the UK’s corporate-science culture.