Saturday, September 23, 2006

Imagine you had money to burn

Aka; Buying friends and influencing people.

Imagine, the Lucky Dip ticket that you invested a pound in on Wednesday provided five of the six numbers picked in the National Lottery, you would have a tidy little sum to spend on a night out, almost 2000 pounds to be exact!

What would you do with it?

• Blow the lot with some friends at the local boozer - perhaps.
• Hire a corporate box at the Stadium of Light for a mid-week game, taking your mates - perhaps.
• Take the wife to London for the weekend, stay in a half decent hotel and go to a west end show - perhaps.
• Have a week with the family in the sunnier climate of the Canaries - perhaps.

Perhaps not.

With this sort of dosh you could go to Manchester to buy friends and influence people!

Bell Pottinger Public Affairs (BPPA), set up by Tory stalwart Lord Bell, is offering clients dinner and drinks with two Cabinet members, including the Lord Chancellor, two ministers of state and three senior MPs. Of course there are many folks out there who have this sort of spare change any night of the week, and if their businesses were to to prosper and be more profitable they would have even more to spare. Sometimes, red tape and legislation get in the way of making healthy profits, sometimes change can be a little unwelcome, so wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit down with a cabinet minister over dinner and drinks to iron things out, put the minister straight, advise him/her in a more personal and intimate way. Yes, that's the way to get business done!

I'm not suggesting that some political parties may be different to others, but faced with the mountain of debt, and faced with Yates of the Yard, New Labour is reduced to charging 12,000 pounds for trade stands at it's party conference in Manchester next week. Needless to say, those neeeding to bend the ear of pliable ministers have bought them all up.

I think I'd rather spend my winnings on a ringside seat for the next bout between Harrison and Waggot, far more entertaining!

Link

The Times Online

# posted by Curly : 7:24 pm