Questions for Maude - Urgent !
Iain Dale is interviewing Tory Chairman Francis Maude tonight on 18 Doughty Street and is asking on his blog for some questions to ask. So how about some of these.
1. Who was involved, on both sides of the transaction, in negotiating their £250,000 Juniper Trading Equities Limited loan at base rate -0.25%, repayable over 30 years, and whether they consider this to be a commercial rate? Is Juniper offering similar rates to anyone else? If this loan is not commercial, will David Cameron publish the names of the owners and backers of Juniper Trading Equities Limited, based in Geneva and registered in the British Virgin Islands, and reassure us that they are permissible donors?
2. Who was involved, on both sides of the transaction, in negotiating the £3.6 million loan from Lanners Services Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands and is this loan at a commercial rate?
3. Who are The 'Medlina Foundation' - which has given a loan of £950,000 and gives as its address the contact details of its law firm in Liechtenstein? Is this a commercial loan, and if not, are its backers permissible donors? Who negotiated this transaction?
4. How can Ironmade Limited, which gave a loan of £1,014,000 on 1 June 2005 and was only incorporated as a company a few weeks before, on 13 April 2005, give a loan of this size if it is a 'non-trading company' as it says on the Companies House website? Who negotiated this transaction?
5. Big Ben Films gave a loan of £2,600,000 on 31 March 2006 and is described
on the Companies House website as a 'non-trading company'. The director of
the company is known Tory donor Johan Eliasch. Is this a commercial loan? How can a non-trading company lend £2.6m? Who negotiated this transaction?
6. Who is behind the Scottish Business Groups Focus on Scotland�, which donated to the Conservative Party £200,000? Are they permissible donors? Who negotiated this transaction?
7. Non-cash donations worth £148,000 in the form of auction prizes were
donated to the national Conservative Party. Who bid for these prizes and how much money was generated? Were all of these donors permissible under election law?