Brown won’t go away until something is done…

No, not that Brown, sadly the country stays upon his leisure in the sense that he gets to decide within reason when he goes. I am, of course, referring to Michael Brown, the convicted fraudster who sadly for us chose to make the Liberal Democrats one of the beneficiaries of his largess. Today’s Observer carries a story saying that the Electoral Commission has stepped-up it’s investigation and taken the “unprecedented step” of obtaining computer records, emails and witness statements from the City of London police.

This story is an elephant in the room; one that is obviously visible to most people but seemingly invisible to the leadership. Now, there is no way logistically that this party can afford a repayment that amounts to a liability per-member of £40 and to be honest I have no intention of paying a levy I can’t afford because Michael Brown is a fraudster and we became his dupes (however unwitting). So, this is simply not a realistic route, as I have said before; however, even if the Electoral Commission finds in our favour and that story then there is still the small matter of the legal action brought by Robert Mann.

I can’t escape the feeling we have brought this problem on ourselves; had we displayed a different attitude, had we shown sympathy with Brown’s victims, had we done something like pay at least some money into a trust fund for them or a charity then things would have been different and people may well have readily excepted that as victims ourselves we were doing our best. Instead, the leadership’s attitude has seemingly tried to make a virtue out of antagonising them and almost actively encouraging them to keep pushing. In that light I can’t help but feel if things do go horribly wrong then we will be left with ourselves bearing a large share of the responsibility with this one.