Denis  MacShane is facing another police investigation after our letter to Scotland Yard following his resignation as an MP.

“that a new era of transparency in government has begun and today’s publications show that nobody, no matter where they work, or who they are, is exempt from this agenda. Much of what we have done today is completely new. For the first time anyone can see a whole range of information that has been held by governments before, but never put in the public domain. … But this is about much more than names and charts. We are drawing back the curtains to let light into the innermost corridors of power.”

The Cabinet Office Minister personally committed to publishing details of Ministerial meetings on a quarterly basis online. The website has not been updated since June 2011.

In view of reports of meetings with party donors in Number 10 itself, it is an unacceptable breach of this transparency pledge that those meetings have gone unrecorded.

Today the Sunlight Centre calls on the Government to draw “back the curtains and let the light into Downing Street’s innermost corridors of power.”

“We have this week begun a new investigation into the election spending of Zac Goldsmith, Chris Huhne and Ed Balls. We have reason to believe that there was irregular spending in all three of these tight campaigns. There is evidence of high spending in all of these seats, yet these successful candidates managed to declare their expenditure at the permitted level. Chris Huhne and Zac Goldsmith are both multi-millionaires, while Ed Balls received large amounts of funding from the Unite trade union. We are seeking to get to the bottom what could potentially be criminal offences…”

Your donations enabled our researcher to trawl their expense returns, and despite being stonewalled and blocked at every turn by Huhne’s agent and staff, we were able to provide enough evidence to the Commission to trigger a formal inquiry into his election expenses. We wouldn’t have been able to do that without you.

The complaint and specific allegations we made can be found here, the BBC’s report is online here. The Electoral Commission said last night:

“Our assessment of the information indicated that there may be the possibility of an offence under Representation of the People Act 1983.”

Their case review will report by August 24. Sadly this is too late for them to be able to report their findings to the police, however the Sunlight Centre is consulting with our legal advisers and will be pursuing this course of action ourselves in the coming days.

Without your help and support we would be unable to continue our fight against corruption in Westminster. Any small contribution you are able to give to this campaign will be hugely appreciated, and will make sure we can continue to shine a light in the dark corridors or power.

Please click the donate button below to help in anyway you can.

Thank you for your continued support and generosity.

Sunlight is on the case:

More soon.

We, the undersigned, call on Eric Illsley to immediately resign and trigger a by-election in Barnsley Central.

SIGN

The battle for Eastleigh was one of the tightest at the General Election. Chris Huhne managed to hold the seat after a hard-fought battle with Maria Hutchings, the Conservative candidate. Huhne declared campaign expenses of £10,911.05 in the 23 days before the General Election – a mere £113 under the the legal limit of £11,024.

After examining the expenses returns of Chris Huhne the Sunlight Centre for Open Politics posed a number of question to Eastleigh Liberal Democrats. A week later we are yet to receive a response. Given how close Chris Huhne was to his expenses limit it is necessary to have absolute transparency in order to assure the public that no impropriety was taking place.

One area of concern is the ‘Itchen Valley Printing Society’, a company that provided a large proportion of Chris Huhne’s campaign literature. He spent £4,426 with the organisation – over 40% of his total spend in the short campaign.

But despite its vague name the organisation is far from independent. The Itchen Valley Printing Society is based at 109a Leigh Road, Eastleigh – the same address as Chris Huhne’s constituency office. And in 2007 Huhne claimed over £2,600 of taxpayer’s money from his parliamentary Communications Fund to fund an ‘Envelope Stuffing Machine’ for the Printing Society.

It is feasible that there is a printing press at the small suburban office that serves as Eastleigh Lib Dem HQ. But the leaflets that were distributed by Chris Huhne during the election all state in their smallprint that they were printed by ‘Park Communications Ltd’ of Alpine Way, London:

-Example 1
-Example 2
-Example 3

The Sunlight COPs have asked why Park Communications did not directly invoice Eastleigh Liberal Democrats but instead filtered all these expenses through the Itchen Valley Printing Society. We want to ensure that Park were charging a fair price. The invoices provided do not allow us to do so.

Park Communications is the Lib Dems’ favourite printer and supplied materials to many Lib Dem candidates in marginal seats. Its chief executive, Heath Mason, has close connections to high flying Lib Dems and co-hosted a reception at last autumn’s party conference with Hilary Stephenson, the head of the Lib Dem’s Campaigns Department. Stephenson notably advised Lib Dems on how to squeeze their Communications Allowance for party-political gain.

The Sunlight COPs have several unanswered questions that can be seen below:

Letter to Chris Huhne’s agent

We have this week begun a new investigation into the election spending of Zac Goldsmith, Chris Huhne and Ed Balls. We have reason to believe that there was irregular spending in all three of these tight campaigns.

There is evidence of high spending in all of these seats, yet these successful candidates managed to declare their expenditure at the permitted level. Chris Huhne and Zac Goldsmith are both multi-millionaires, while Ed Balls received large amounts of funding from the Unite trade union.

Until last year Spelman co-owned Spelman, Cormack & Associates, a food and biotechnology lobbying firm she set up in 1989 with her husband, Mr Mark Spelman, using her maiden name, Cormack. Less than a year ago she transferred her shares in the firm to her husband and resigned her directorship in May 2009.

According to Companies House records the company’s registered office was in the Secretary of State’s constituency home until May last year. Her husband, Mark Spelman, remains a director of the company still trading under the Secretary of State’s name in sectors closely related to issues for which she is responsible.

Given that the company is still using her maiden name to trade, a name by which she would have been known when active in farming politics in the 1980s, this is clearly of public interest.

The Sunlight Centre has posed the following questions:

1. Will the Secretary of State step back from dealing with matters which impact on her former clients in the agri-business and bio-tech industy?

2. Has the Secretary of State fully declared all the agri-business companies with which her “family business” had dealings, because these do not seem to be a matter of public record?

3. Will she recuse herself specifically from any negotiations with a bearing on the sugar beet industry given her close past relationship to those with a commercial interest in these negotiations?

A full copy of the Sunlight Centre’s letter to Defra is included below.

The full letter:

Helen Ghosh
Permanent Secretary
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR

Sent by fax and post to: 0207 238 6118

Dear Ms. Ghosh,

I am writing to bring to your attention a possible conflict of interesting regarding the newly appointed Secretary of State for your department, the Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP.

As you should already be aware, until last year the Secretary of State for your department co-owned Spelman, Cormack & Associates, a food and biotechnology lobbying firm she set up in 1989 with her husband, Mr Mark Spelman, using her maiden name, Cormack. Less than a year ago she transferred her shares in the firm to her husband and resigned her directorship in May 2009. According to Companies House records the company’s registered office was in the Secretary of State’s constituency home until May last year. Her husband, Mark Spelman, remains a director of the company still trading under the Secretary of State’s name in sectors closely related to issues for which she is responsible. Given that the company is still using her maiden name to trade, a name by which she would have been known when active in farming politics in the 1980s, this is clearly of public interest.

The Secretary of State is in charge of negotiating subsidies, quotas and tariff barriers at the EU Agricultural Council, giving rise to a clear conflict of interest between this official role and her close links to a company which has in the past lobbied or may be intending to lobby over such matters. The Secretary of State is also responsible for Genetically Modified food regulations at the same time as her husband’s firm deals with bio-tech industry clients. Ms. Spelman therefore remains linked to a farming and food lobbying firm that she set up, held shares in for ten years, and for which her husband is still using her name and home address for commercially.

In view of this information we ask you to clarify the following:

1. Will the Secretary of State step back from dealing with matters which impact on her former clients in the agri-business and bio-tech industy?

2. Has the Secretary of State fully declared all the agri-business companies with which her “family business” had dealings, because these do not seem to be a matter of public record?

3. Will she recuse herself specifically from any negotiations with a bearing on the sugar beet industry given her close past relationship to those with a commercial interest in these negotiations?

As a result of anti-competitive EU regulations and industry lobbying consumers in Britain pay massively inflated prices for sugar in comparison to world prices, there is therefore a legitimate public interest in knowing that the Minister responsible for negotiating the regime which governs sugar prices is free of any perceived conflict of interest or association with vested commercial interests in this area.

Yours sincerely,

Juliet Samuel
Centre for Open Politics
juliet@sunlight-cops.org.uk

Here’s a reminder of some of Ms Smith’s expense claims:

• She became the expenses scandal “poster girl” after her husband was found to have claimed £10 to watch porn in a hotel. She also pays her husband a full salary on expenses for being her Parliamentary assistant.
• She was found to be guilty of having wrongly designated her main home to the tune of £116,000 extra in expense claims and had to issue a humiliating apology to the House.
• Despite this, she never paid the money back.
• She claimed for decorating her house, fencing the garden, an outdoor patio heater, a barbecue, cleaning her carpet, a Panasonic SCMP31 mini hi-fi.

With all that kit, at least we know she’ll be well-equipped to spend her post-Parliament days in her garden!

Attack Ad running from 6 pm tonight in Morley and Outwood on local media websites Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post, Morley and Outwood Observer and Wakefield Express from 6pm.

Transparency and anti-corruption campaigners at the Sunlight Centre have bought advertising space for a video which attacks Ed Balls for expenses abuses including flipping his house three times, claiming for a remembrance poppy wreath and taking an £89,000 payment for producing two pamphlets for the Smith Institute in 9 months.  The Smith Institute charity was closely linked to Gordon Brown and was criticised by the Charity Commission for supporting Brownite political projects.  Gordon Brown’s allies Lord Myners and Wilf Stevenson resigned from the Smith Institute follwoing the report and it was widely considered to be a slush fund for Brown’s leadership ambitions.

The advert includes footage of Ed Balls at Oxford University wearing a Nazi uniform.