Posted on 03/21/2006 8:15:19 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
Scotland Yard has been called in to investigate Britain's Labour Party after allegations that Prime Minister Tony Blair organised multi-million-dollar loans and then rewarded those lending the money with peerages.
For a week, Mr Blair has been caught up in the 'loans for Lordships' scandal after revelations he arranged loans to the Labour Party totalling $34 million.
The loans were kept secret and shortly afterwards Mr Blair recommended some of those big party lenders for peerages.
Most of the party, including the Chancellor Gordon Brown and senior leaders in the Parliamentary wing, were kept in the dark.
Mr Blair has already admitted the loans were a mistake and he wants to overhaul the rules for party funding.
Now Scotland Yard is investigating the Labour party after receiving three complaints.
What is the chain of command here? Is Scotland yard independant of the feds?
I think Scotland Yard ARE the Feds.
Blair is in deep trouble.
Isn't this practice about 900 years old in England?
More here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/22/nloans122.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/22/ixnewstop.html
Sounds like Blair is indeed in very deep doo-doo.
Isn't the Scotland Yard the national police force for the whole United Kingdom, or a bit like the Organized Crimes Bureau of the whole mess known as British police services?
All I really know about Scotland Yard I learned in mystery novels and on PBS.
I did like Lestrade and Gregson working with Sherlock Holmes ;)
New Scotland Yard, often referred to simply as Scotland Yard or The Yard, is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for policing Greater London (although not the City of London itself).
I live in a country with a British-dervied political culture. New Zealand has a unified national police force (New Zealand Police) so I assumed the United Kingdom is the same. Apparently they are separate police services, independent from each other but all under the overall overseeing of Westminster.
Didn't know myself so I looked it up. Seems that I recall reading a lot of 'Scotland Yard called in's' so, I'm assuming that the Yard assists in difficult cases outside their jurisdiction.
"Is Scotland yard independant of the feds?"
Really not sure what you mean by 'feds' in this context?
Is the investigation independent? Can Tony Blair influence it? Does Britain have an Independant Counsel law?
"Is the investigation independent?"
Yes.
"Can Tony Blair influence it?"
I doubt they'd appreciate that, so trying would be unbelievably foolish.
"Does Britain have an Independant Counsel law?"
Not entirely sure what that is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.