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Tories admit they received unlawful donations from ex-pat Britons
Last updated at 00:37am on 19.12.07
David Cameron donated the sum to public funds after realising the mistake
Mr Cameron's local Tory association banked two donations from ex-pats, who were not legally entitled to give.
They were a free holiday worth £1,500 given as an auction prize by a businessman called Geoffrey Dobbs - thought to be a Sri Lankan hotelier - and a cash payment for the holiday of £5,900 from a Roger Fletcher.
It took nearly three months for Mr Cameron's West Oxfordshire branch to decide it had broken the rules.
Both were given on 21 August and retained by the party until mid-November. The Witney Conservative Association then agreed to forfeit the sum to public funds.
Mr Dobbs has his own island and captains an elephant polo team. He is a cousin of the former Tory vice-chairman and House of Cards novelist Michael Dobbs.
The disclosure is potentially embarrassing to Mr Cameron, who is touring China, because he criticised Gordon Brown for taking money from tycoon David Abrahams.
In one of his fiercest attacks, Mr Cameron said of the Prime Minister: "People will be asking themselves ... if he can't run his party properly, can he really run the country properly?"
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Cameron criticised Gordon Brown for taking money from tycoon David Abrahams (centre)
On 16 November, the week before the "donorgate" scandal erupted, the Tory gifts were "voluntarily forfeited to the Electoral Commission" and listed as impermissible donations. The commission will decide if the money is returned to the donors or confiscated for public funds.
Labour MP John Mann called it a "shocking revelation" and asked what Mr Cameron knew. "It beggars belief that David Cameron was lecturing others and questioning their integrity when he has not even bothered to check that his own house is in order," he said.
A Tory spokesman said: "A local volunteer made a mistake by accepting the money and as soon as headquarters knew about it we forfeited the money."
Reader views (2)
Hmmm, hundreds of thousands vs seven thousand - hushed, hidden and suppressed vs internal review and corrective action. Labour MP John Mann called it a "shocking revelation"? Oh yeah, that computes.
The timing? 'scuse me - when's the one time you're most likely to look at your speedometer? When you see a police car or a camera. Probably lots of other small donations being more closely looked at right across the political spectrum right now, but none so egregiously wrong as the recent big-time one perpetrated by the Labour Party, and the subsequent wriggling to get out of it.
I'd have been surprised if there had not been a John Mann approached to dutifully give a horrified exclamation!
- Rogan, Dallas, TX
At least their names are known and did not use third parties to hide their donations.
And they appear to be people who work for a living.
I am baffled why expats can't make donations, or even vote. If they could then maybe Labour would never be elected ever. What a wonderful thought!
- P.Robinson, Northants
