Britain’s Democracy Up For Auction

Owen Jones writes:

Britain’s railways, the NHS, the education secretary’s dignity – is there anything the Tories won’t flog off for a bit of cash?

A morning jog with Nicky Morgan followed by a “hearty breakfast” (a recalcitrant comprehensive school served with bacon and eggs, perhaps) may not appeal.

There’s always a “mini-Iron Man-style” 10k cross-country run with Iain Duncan Smith, which is probably a pilot scheme for a new daily regimen for benefit claimants.

Or there’s shoe shopping with Theresa May, although this cruel and unusual abuse may have to wait until she has finally scrapped the Human Rights Act.

The revelations about the Tory auction at Grosvenor House, published on Buzzfeed, are amusing but probably not very surprising. Britain’s booming rich have a taste for many things: fine wines, yachts, country mansions – but this season’s must-have accessory is a political party.

That awful embarrassment of the financial sector plunging the country into economic disaster could have led to all sorts of unseemly demands for tax hikes on the über-rich.

A wise investment, then, to back a party that continually reminds us that the nation’s ills are down to benefit claimants, immigrants and public sector workers.

If you’re one of the richest 1,000 Britons who have enjoyed a doubling of wealth during one of the worst economic crises in modern history, it surely smacks of ingratitude not to fling a few pennies into the Tory coffers. Scared of the exposure?

No need to worry: the nation’s media are far more agitated about Labour being funded by fat-cat supermarket workers, gold-plated dinner ladies and scrounging bin collectors.

That the Tories are a plaything of the rich barely causes a stir.

They even spin the fact that they are bankrolled by that ultimate vested interest – the British ruling class – into a positive. It is portrayed as a sign of competence.

Yes, we’re kept financially afloat by the mean and the greedy who will more than recoup their donations when we cut their taxes; but we’re in with the right people, so that shows we know what we’re doing, right?

A poll in 2013 revealed that more than half of us believe the Tories “only represents the interests of the rich”, and that includes a startling 18% of voters who opted for the Conservatives in 2010. The electorate are not a bunch of conspiracy theorists

 In an effort to head off the mansion tax – a policy which would affect the top 0.5% of homeowners – the Tories sent a letter to donors with the heading “Don’t Tax Our Homes”.

In order “to keep the taxman out of your home”, the letter suggested, “the only way off the table in the future is the election of a majority Conservative government in 2015.” Naturally, that meant coughing up.

There was no pretence here: if you are rich then give us some money, and we promise to fight your corner.

As those well-known pinko lefties at the Financial Times put it back in 2011: “Even donors admit that Tory MPs’ desire to cut the 50p top rate of income tax is because these rich City donors are so close to the party.”

One donor put it to them rather bluntly, accepting that there weren’t “many votes” in the cut (indeed, half of all Tory voters opposed reducing the top rate).

But “among those that give significant amounts to the party, it’s a big issue, and that’s probably why it’s a big issue for the party too”.

Take Andrew Lansley, who drove through the legislation that fragmented and marketised our NHS.

Before the election he was “bankrolled” (in the words of those arch-socialists at the Telegraph and the Daily Mail) by John Nash, the then chairman of private healthcare firm Care UK, who handed him £21,000 to run his private office. 

Handily, Care UK has an entire section of its website listing which chunks of the NHS it currently runs.

It is far from alone. Research suggests companies with financial links to the Tories scooped up £1.5bn of NHS contracts between 2012 and 2014.

The Tories have promoted fracking, undoubtedly to the great delight of Tory donors hoping to profit from it.

Other Tory donors – like the founders of the Employment and Skills Group – must have been chuffed to get hefty contracts with the Department for Work and Pensions.

It goes without saying that the City figures who dominate the list of Tory donors must be rather satisfied: the government even took the EU to court on their behalf to protect their bonuses.

During the cold war the left was routinely accused of taking Moscow gold, but the Russian oligarchs who benefited from the post-Soviet plunder of public assets know a good deal when they see one. Well over £1m of Russian money has ended up in the Tory party’s bank accounts.

Then there’s legal loan sharks and rip-off loan firms – those great beneficiaries from Britain’s protracted collapse in living standards – like Everyday Loans, run by Tory donor Henry Angest.

A major investor in Wonga is Adrian Beecroft, who has paid to have “speed-dating” sessions with Tory ministers. The romance of it all.

There is no shortage of reasons to be frustrated with a Labour party not offering an inspiring enough alternative.

But for Tories to be auctioning off dinners, bronze statues of Thatcher and pheasant shooting escapades in our nation of food banks, zero-hour contracts and poverty wages – well, it should concentrate the senses.

Our shameless, rapacious economic elite keep the Conservatives afloat not out of generosity, but because they expect a return.

Can money buy democracy? In less than three months, we will find out.