Jagshemash! Borat and Welsh party funding
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Later today Plaid launch their election campaign. So far they haven't launched anything except a vitriolic attack on Labour. Plaid are trying to hit Labour where it hurts: at the coalface.
Labour, historically the party of miners, accepted a £2m donation from mining and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal just last week. Back in 2001, Tony Blair got into all sorts of trouble for allegedly intervening in a contractual issue on Mittal's behalf. This week, it has emerged Blair will consider honouring Mittal - Britain's richest man. Someone should tell Mr Blair that courting more honours controversy at this moment is about as sensible as Jade Goody putting a pillowcase on her head and dancing around her garden.
So, what's all this got to do with Borat and Wales? Well, Plaid are asking Welsh Labour to promise not to spend a penny of Mittal's money on their election campaign. Why? Because Wales still cares about mining, even if Thatcher put a stop to it, and Mittal is blamed for miners' deaths in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Dariga Nazarbaeva, the Kazakh President's daughter and powerful media tycoon, is said to hold Mittal responsible for the deaths of 80 Kazakh coal miners in the past three years.
Could Labour possibly get away with funding an election campaign on the blood of dead miners? No, well not if they died in Aberavon. But they didn't, and so far there's no proof of Mittal's culpability anyway. Plaid have got their headline and that will probably be the end of it. Unless they can persuade Borat to endorse them...
Labels: Borat, cash for honours, donation, Labour, Mittal, party funding, Plaid Cymru, Tony Blair
posted by Blamerbell @ 7:25 am,
