This morning I wrote on the FT front page that Ed Miliband has been accused of “hypocrisy” for launching his moral crusade against ‘bad’ business while Labour officials are negotiating a £1m donation from Andrew Rosenfeld, a former tax exile.
Rosenfeld is also controversial because in 2005, during the collapse of Allders, he refused to accept responsibility for its £68m pension deficit despite his large financial stake in the retail chain – through a vehicle called Scarlett Retail.
Meanwhile this morning Miliband is trying to refine his message further, suggesting that Labout is “not anti-business but anti-business-as-usual” – which is a much more effective line.
Channel 4 are doing more on Rosenfeld tonight. As Gary Gibbon writes on his blog:
You can see Jon Snow’s interview with the Labour leader tonight. It’s particularly interesting on whether the self-proclaimed ripper-up of the rule book intends to carry on negotiating a £1m donation from Andrew Rosenfeld, who only recently returned to the UK from Geneva and was criticised for refusing to accept responsibility for a pension deficit at Allders even though he had a chunky stake in the firm (you can read a bit about it all in today’s FT).
Ed M says that on this donation he is playing it all by the rules: “we are not flouting the rules.” Hmm. Not ripping up the rules exactly? The predator/producer check will be run very tightly by the media on who donates from corporate Britain to the Labour Party in future. Also who advises and who endorses.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey