Lib Dem PPC in Bribery Scandal

A

publicity stunt

by Liberal Democrat

York Outer

PPC Madeleine Kirk has spectacularly backfired. A week ago she put out this statement:

"Our party is the natural home for students. We are the only party to oppose tuition fees, we are the leading campaigners on the environment and civil liberties and we are calling for the investment that will make it easier for all young people, students or otherwise, to get a job.

"It is clear from the record number of people we have signed up this year that there is a growing momentum behind the Lib Dems locally and an excitement about the coming election."

However all is not as it seems. Eagle-eyed

student rag

hack Peter Campbell has

blown the lid off

what could become a highly embarrassing scandal for the Kirk and Liberal Youth. It seems local party funds have been used to pay for membership to the Liberal Democrats for students signed up in Fresher's Week:

Offering free membership at Freshers’ Fayre radically increased the number of people who joined the society by a factor of ten.

Previous years have seen roughly 10 members overall.

Essentially membership is given away for free in order to get people to sign up and appear to be really joining. As

one York student

told their Nouse student paper:

"If this is the only way the Lib Dems can get members, I really feel sorry for them. Labour and Tories on campus regularly get 60+ and 70+ members respectively signing up at freshers fair annually and paying a membership fee. You have to wonder how committed their members will be if they weren’t prepared to pay a couple of quid to sign up."

Kirk has said; "It certainly wasn’t bribery" but it is hard to see how this can possibly be true. It's almost a textbook example of it. Free membership to a political party, paid for by other party members, all you have to do is put your mark upon a sheet. It's not just bribery, but lies and spin of the lowest kind.

TB wonders what else Ms Kirk has lied about?

While Kirk has attempted to cover up the issue by denying her own money was used, others have not kept stuck quite so closely to the line. As Campbell reports:

"Councillor Tom Holvey, who was on the Lib Dem stall at Freshers’ Fayre, said however that it would help boost York’s profile nationally with the Lib Dems. “It will definitely give York more kudos”, he said.

The money used came from individual donations from the local party, including councillors and local members. The total amount pledged would have covered the cost of 150 members of the party. Even though Kirk herself did not pledge money, she was aware of the deal and fully supported the donations. All the money pledged has been paid, with the excess “going into the kitty in case we wanted to do something like this again.”

The agreement to donate the money was reached between Craig Martin, Lib Dem chair at the university, and a number of local councillors last summer over an end-of-term BBQ.

Martin calls the money ‘sponsorship’, saying “we have never had enough members. I was always having to treble numbers when telling people how many we had, just to make us look like a worthwhile party. We decided to try this.”

“It is the best thing in the world for me to come into a society that was about to die and completely turn it around.”

It looks like Craig Martin is destined for a fast-track career within the Lib Dems with moral scruples such as those. First he admits to hoovering up dodgy money, then lying in the past about membership and then blowing his own trumpet. Cowley Street must be so proud.

The whole thing is a complete and utter PR disaster, Kirk has been sorely humiliated being seen to attempt to buy a campaign team. The arrogance of putting out a release singing the praises of the recruitment drive, a sentiment also adopted by the national Liberal Youth organisation, beggars belief.

If further proof of the fact Liberal Democrats are liars was ever needed, let this be yet another example.