May took money from Honours List men

The current Prime Minister took money from men in the previous Prime Minister’s Resignation Honours List, which was leaked to the Sunday Times.

Theresa May’s Conservative Party election campaign received £15,000 from Ian Taylor, the oil executive at Vitol and funder of the pro-EU campaign who was recommended for a knighthood.

She was also given £20,000 by IPGL, a company linked to businessman Michael Spencer, whom David Cameron recommended for a peerage before it was blocked by Whitehall.

CONFIDENCE UNDERMINED

To his credit, Mr Taylor, a Conservative party donor who also made donations to the EU Remain campaign, has said he does not wish his name to go forward. Mr Spencer’s name was also rubbed out because of his involvement in the ‘Libor’ interest-rate fixing scandal. He had raised around £70m for the Tory Party.

But their mere presence on the list will embarrass the Prime Minister.

Mrs May has the power to block David Cameron’s ‘Honours’ list but has refused to do so, saying it would ‘set a bad precedent’. Some would argue it would set a very good precedent indeed. Neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown rewarded their cronies in his way when they resigned. The last prime minister to do so was John Major, whose own administration was mired in scandal.

Rewarding cronies undermines public confidence in the political system, which is why Almighty God, in the mouth of the father-in-law of Moses, so clearly says that appointments should be on the basis of ability, on truth and fearing God, and not on avarice, of whatever sort:

Exodus 18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers …

GIFT BLINDETH THE WISE

The Bible says: Exodus 23:8 And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

Any ‘gift’ may be monetary or it can come in the form of a favour. Mr Cameron intends to ask the Queen to bestow knighthoods on his Remain ministerial colleagues Philip Hammond, David Lidington, Hugo Swire, Michael Fallon and Patrick McLoughlin while Caroline Spelman would become a Dame, the female version.

Mr Cameron’s former strategy adviser, Steve Hilton, has said the resignation honours list revealed a “serious type of very British corruption”.

Still on the list is Andrew Cook, who gave £250,000 to the Remain campaign and has donated £1m to the Tories over the past decade. He is also line for a knighthood. Well does the Bible say: Prov 18:16 A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.

HAND FULL OF BRIBES

The previous Prime Minister would have done well to heed the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Isa 33:15 He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; 16 He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.

The current Prime Minister should have blocked the list, the full shabby details of which are listed by the Guardian in this article.

Theresa May might remember this verse of a psalm from her clergyman father’s daily readings: Psalm 26:9 Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men: 10 In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.

CRITICISM RUG PULLED BY CORBYN

For some reason, Jeremy Corbyn chose to undermine criticism of Mr Cameron’s list by himself offering a nomination for it, Shami Chakrarbati for a peerage. Miss Chakrarbati spring cleaned the National Council for Civil Liberties after its spirit-of-the-age flirtation with paedophile groups during Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman’s tenure in the 1980s. The organisation was renamed as ‘Liberty’ in 1989.

Shami Chakrabarti may well be able to hold the Government to account in the House of Lords in this increasingly authoritarian age, but her peerage has arrived hard on the heels of her chairing Labour’s investigation into anti-Semitism, denounced as a ‘whitewash’ by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Marie van der Zyl, the group’s vice-president, said: ‘It is beyond disappointing that Shami Chakrabarti has been offered, and accepted, a peerage from Labour following her so-called “independent” inquiry.

‘The report, which was weak in several areas, now seems to have been rewarded with an honour. This “whitewash for peerages” is a scandal that surely raises serious questions about the integrity of Ms Chakrabarti, her inquiry and the Labour leadership.’

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said her report’s credibility now “lies in tatters” after she accepted the peerage.

By offering the peerage Mr Corbyn pulled the rug of legitimate criticism of the Cameron crony-list from under his own feet. It is another error of judgment from a man upon whose shoulders so much depends.

Now being implicated in the same sin, Mr Corbyn cannot hold the Government to account in this matter:

John 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

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