Northern Rock, the hedge fund and the Tory donor

Two hedge funds, RAB Capital and SRM Global, which bought into Northern Rock after the crisis began, have called an extraordinary meeting today to try in effect to block temporary nationalisation. RAB Capital is, according to the Electoral Commission register, historically a Conservative donor. In March 2001, when William Hague was leader, it gave £10,000. RAB Capital says in its 2006 annual report that "in 2005 a payment of £3,000 was made to the Conservative Party" but no donation appears on the Electoral Commission register (rightly, because the reporting threshold is £5,000). RAB Capital's Co-founder Michael Alen-Buckley did give £50,000 in March 2006 and a further £50,000 in March 2007, though.

The Conservatives oppose the nationalisation of Northern Rock.

Comments

[Guido Fawkes]

Aha, obviously the Tories are only against nationalising private enterprises because six years ago Wiliam Hague got £10,000 from an investment fund.

Well spotted.

[Trevor Holcroft]

ooooh ...!

err, 'Trade unions donate millions to Labour' says the headline.

or rather it doesn't.

[pregethwr]

Guido Fawkes reduced to trawling comment boxes to rubbish anti-Tory stories...

[Simon Booker]

What a poor article. I struggle to see any relevance other than the jouranlist struggling to substantiate a anti-tory story. I find this all quite sad, as given the obvious left wing bias that is now embedded within the Times (having been an avid Times reader, I've now switched newspapers simply because I felt objectivity had deserted the Times, as it has the BBC), I worry that the incompetence of this labour Government is increasingly airbrushed with Spin. Articles like this one, with a link to the main UK page of your on-line paper, really don't help.

[Sarkis Zeronian]

pregethwr,

Guido makes a fair point though, unlike you.

[Jacques Green]

Surprise, surprise the Tories are against nationalisation! Neither of the hedge funds existed in the nineteen-forties when the trade union were bribing the Labour party to nationalise everything in sight.

Is it really a surprise to find that investment companies have offered support to the only party
which has usually opposed the socialist creep of nationalisation? Or that trade unions give milions of pounds each year to the party that does their bidding?

[brian]

The Times is becoming a clone of the Daily Mirror - a mouthpiece for NuLab.