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Keir Starmer Labour Leader

sun_tzu

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£90k fund ready to go, who are you his spokesperson? I already said he was found not guilty but the circumstances are not cut and dry as with any legal cases. He was found not guilty because the fine set by the EC for the offence was too high.
The judge said the following ‘He added that even if Grimes had committed the offence, it would not have justified the fine of £20,000, the maximum possible under current law.’

And he argued he was confused by a form. Now he’s riding on the fame of it and classes himself as a political commentator.
that is incorrect
the size of the imposed fine was not the reason he was found not guilty
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2019/1567.html
  1. we have come to the conclusion that the interpretation reached by the Divisional Court is wrong. This is essentially for the following reasons.

  2. First, the distinction between "general donations" and "specific donations" does not appear anywhere in the 2000 Act itself. It had to be introduced by the Divisional Court (even if it is simply to be regarded as a shorthand to refer to expenses incurred "in respect of" the activities listed in Part 1 of Schedule 13) because it was recognised by the Court that not all donations can properly be regarded as an expense incurred by the donor. A distinction had to be drawn between those donations which will also be expenses incurred by the donor and those which will not. However, in our view this led the Divisional Court to cross the line between interpretation and the creation of a different scheme from that in the legislation.

  3. This can be illustrated by the terms of the Divisional Court judgment at [81] where the Court was driven in effect to set out detailed rules for when a donation will also count as an expense incurred by the donor. That passage in effect has to be read as if it were contained in a statute.

  4. Furthermore, the distinctions which the Divisional Court had to draw in order to define the boundaries of the concept of a "specific donation" themselves give rise to potentially complicated and difficult questions of civil law: see e.g. [78], where the Court referred to an obligation being either contractual or "an equitable obligation arising under a specific purpose trust of the type recognised in Barclays Bank Ltd v Quistclose Investments Ltd [1970] AC 567." These concepts are far removed from those with which electoral law is concerned.

  5. This leads us to the second reason for reaching our conclusion. The statutory provisions which have to be interpreted in this case are ones which create potential criminal liability on the part of individuals. Section 117(1) and (2) of the 2000 Act create a criminal offence in circumstances where an individual exceeds the limit on expenditure of £10,000 unless they are a "permitted participant". Someone who gives a donation of over £10,000 without being a permitted participant will be liable to criminal prosecution if (on the Divisional Court's analysis) they have not simply made a donation but have also incurred an expense within the meaning of section 111. The Divisional Court recognised that this context was one in which the statutory principle against "doubtful penalisation" comes into play: see e.g. [40]. However, we respectfully consider that the Divisional Court did not give sufficient weight to this consideration in reaching its interpretation.

  6. The third reason is that the legislation needs to be read and given effect in a way which can be applied in a practical way by all those concerned. This will include individuals as well as bodies which wish to make a donation. It will also include the Electoral Commission and other officials who have to administer the legislation. It will potentially include magistrates, trial judges and jurors, who may have to apply the legislation if criminal proceedings are brought. With great respect to the Divisional Court, we do not consider that the concepts which it introduced into this area of law (and which we have outlined above) will be capable of ready application by those who have to administer the law "on the ground".

  7. The fourth reason is as follows. The Divisional Court recognised that Parliament has enacted provisions to cater for the situation where there is a "common plan". Nevertheless, we consider that the Divisional Court did not give sufficient weight to the implications of that part of the legislation for the interpretation of the 2000 Act more generally. What that part of the legislation illustrates (albeit it was introduced for the purposes of the EU referendum in the 2015 Act) is that, when Parliament wished to enact specific provisions for circumstances in which it might otherwise be said that limits on expenditure could be circumvented, it expressly said so. Where Parliament has chosen not to do so, either generally or because the specific provisions relating to common plans do not apply (as was the presumed basis of fact on which the Divisional Court proceeded), the courts should not interpret legislation in effect to create further circumstances in which the donor can also be regarded as having incurred expenses which potentially exceed the statutory limit on expenditure by that person.

  8. Fifth, the reasoning of the Divisional Court appears to have been heavily influenced by the fact that, as it happens, the donor in question in this case was Vote Leave, which was itself not only a permitted participant but a "designated organisation". However, the reasoning of the Divisional Court and the interpretation to which it came will be equally applicable to any person, whether or not they are a designated organisation or a permitted participant. This is why, as we have said, it could capture an individual donor who makes a transparent donation of just over £10,000, knowing that there is no limit on the amount of donations that they can make, but could lead to that individual becoming liable to criminal proceedings because they have, on the Divisional Court's interpretation, also incurred an expense for referendum purposes. We do not consider that that interpretation can be right.

  9. Sixth, we bear in mind that the terms that fall for interpretation in this case do not arise only in the context of referendums. As Mr Coppel reminded us, the phrase "expenses incurred" is to be found throughout election legislation and dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. So far as we are aware it has not caused any great difficulty in practice. Certainly, no authority was cited to us to suggest that it has.

  10. Mr Coppel drew our attention to the decision of the Election Court in the Cockermouth Division case (1901) 5 O'M & H 155. What that case illustrates is that it is not only expenses incurred directly by, for example, a parliamentary candidate which will be caught by the limits on expenditure. That limit will also include expenses incurred by a third party on behalf of the candidate: see in particular the concurring judgment of Channell J at p.158, where he said:

  11. "If another person pays an expense, and that expense is one of the ordinary expenses of the candidate, so that the doing of that by the third person relieves the candidate from part of his election expenses, then the candidate must treat that assistance as given to him in respect of his election expenses, and must treat the expenses as part of his expenses."
  12. The public can therefore have assurance that all relevant expenses incurred in favour of a particular point of view, for example in a referendum campaign, will be subject to a limit and will be transparent. The public can also be reassured that all relevant donations will be transparent. On the Divisional Court's interpretation, some donations will also count as expenses incurred by the donor and not only by the donee. We do not consider that that interpretation is required by the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme.

  13. Our seventh reason is that we do not share the Divisional Court's understanding of the ordinary meaning of the phrase "expenses incurred" found in [41] to [44] of its judgment. The Divisional Court accepted the submission which had been advanced on behalf of the Good Law Project. At [41] it said that:

  14. "… It is natural to describe a person as having incurred an expense whenever he or she has spent money or incurred a liability which in either case reduces his or her financial resources. This is also the sense in which accountants typically use the term – albeit with greater precision than in ordinary usage. For example, FRS 102, the financial reporting standard applicable in the UK, defines 'expenses' as 'decreases in economic benefits during the reporting period in the form of outflows or depletions of assets or incurrences of liabilities that result in decreases in equity, other than those relating to distributions to equity investors'."
    This in substance accepted the submission made on behalf of the Good Law Project and recorded at [36]:
    "… The claimant's case is that in the definition the term 'expense' means no more than an outflow of economic benefit and that to 'incur' an expense simply means to bring upon oneself an expense or render oneself liable to an expense. …"
  15. The consequence was that the Divisional Court concluded that anyone who makes a donation to a charity can be said to have incurred an expense in the ordinary meaning of those words: [42]. It was of the view that whenever a person's assets are "diminished", it can be said that that person has incurred an expense. We respectfully disagree. We do not think that the financial reporting standards in accountancy assist in interpreting this statute and would observe that few would consider themselves as having incurred an expense when, as countless thousands do every day, they donate money to charity.

  16. In our view, the Divisional Court fell into the error of assuming that the phrase "expenses incurred" means simply the same thing as "spent". "Expenses" are not necessarily the same as "expenditure" or spending. Furthermore, we consider that the Divisional Court gave insufficient weight to the inclusion in the phrase "expenses incurred" of the word "incurred". We agree with Mr Coppel that that introduces a flavour of some responsibility, even if not strictly speaking legal liability, to pay the expense in question.

  17. In this context, we note that at [44] the Divisional Court acknowledged that the interpretation to be given to the phrase "expenses incurred" contended for by Vote Leave was one which was a possible interpretation as a matter of language. Our view is that, when the legislation is read harmoniously and as a whole, the interpretation contended for by the Electoral Commission (and supported by Vote Leave) is the correct one.

  18. There is no difficulty in the statutory scheme with the same money being treated both as a donation by one person and as a referendum expense by the recipient. The difficulty caused by the Divisional Court's analysis is that a donation may be treated also as a referendum expense by the donor as well as being a referendum expense by the donee. The consequence will be that a single amount of money will count twice towards different people's limits on expenses. It is in this sense that Mr Coppel submits that "double counting" is inconsistent with the statutory scheme. This has the consequence that an examination of the public records of donations and expenses during the referendum campaign would give an exaggerated picture of what was spent. The fact that the statutory approach to common plan expenses can lead to this anomaly does not mean that it should be introduced more widely into the scheme particularly when the common plan expenses regime was specific to this referendum, by virtue of the 2015 Act, and does not apply more widely in electoral law.

  19. We heard argument about the impact of the competing definitions on the activities of volunteer campaigners and their expenses which had been considered by the Divisional Court between [82] and [90] of its judgment.

  20. At [82] the Divisional Court said:

  21. "An example discussed in oral argument which provides a good means of testing these conclusions is a case involving the spending for referendum purposes on travel and accommodation. Suppose that during a referendum campaign volunteers affiliated with a particular campaign organisation (which is a permitted participant) travel from London to Birmingham by rail to attend a public meeting and stay in a hotel overnight. Travel and accommodation costs are thereby incurred. It is useful to distinguish three different scenarios. In the first (Scenario A) the volunteers pay for their travel and hotel expenses from their own resources and are not reimbursed. In Scenario B the volunteers pay for their travel and hotel expenses themselves but are reimbursed by the campaign organisation. In Scenario C the campaign organisation purchases the train tickets and settles the hotel bill directly so that the volunteers never have to part with any money."
  22. As the Divisional Court acknowledged, scenario A can be put to one side because the volunteer campaigners meet their own travel expenses and are not reimbursed. In that situation paragraph 2(c) of Schedule 13 to the 2000 Act expressly excludes the expense from the definition of "referendum expenses".

  23. In scenario B the volunteer campaigners meet their own travel expenses and are reimbursed by the campaign organisation, which the Divisional Court described as a permitted participant. In scenario C the permitted participant pays for the travel expenses of the volunteer campaigners directly. At [90] the Divisional Court concluded that: "In Scenarios B and C we think it plain that the campaign organisation incurs expenses in bearing the cost of travel and accommodation."

  24. Mr Coppel submits that the analogy with travel expenses of this sort does not assist. We agree. One of the difficulties with the suggested scenarios is that, in the present context, Mr Grimes (unlike the volunteer campaigners in the hypothetical scenarios) was himself also a permitted participant. Another difficulty is that Mr Grimes did not make the contracts with AIQ under any agreement with Vote Leave so that it could be said that he had incurred expenses "on behalf of" Vote Leave. Rather, as was recorded by the Divisional Court at [19], AIQ agreed to provide the media campaign on behalf of BeLeave (the unincorporated association run by Mr Grimes).

  25. In the hypothetical scenarios the campaign organisation contemplated by the Divisional Court would not be under a duty to report the payments made by it as donations because they would not be donations to permitted participants. In the present context, Vote Leave did have to report the donations to Mr Grimes because he was a permitted participant.

  26. Moreover, in the hypothetical scenarios, the volunteers would not be under a duty to report their travel expenses as referendum expenses because they would not be permitted participants. In the present context, Mr Grimes was under a duty to report the £620,000 as referendum expenses.

  27. In our view, the correct interpretation of the legislation read as a whole is that a donation to a permitted participant cannot also be an expense incurred by the donor. This interpretation accords both with the natural and ordinary meaning of the 2000 Act and its underlying objectives. It would provide clarity for all those concerned who have to interpret and apply the legislation in a practical way. It would not introduce potentially complicated and subtle concepts of civil law into what is a criminal context.

  28. Conclusion
  29. In the result we allow this appeal and set aside the order made by the Divisional Court, including the declaration it made.
 

spiriticon

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I wish the next election was sooner. I've really had enough of this government's incompetent and sneaky response to coronavirus.
 

TheGame

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that is incorrect
the size of the imposed fine was not the reason he was found not guilty
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2019/1567.html
I was referencing the judges comments which were:

‘Dight ruled that the commission’s notice imposing the fine should be withdrawn. He added that even if Grimes had committed the offence, it would not have justified the fine of £20,000, the maximum possible under current law.’

‘Dight agreed with Grimes’ counsel that the campaigner had not intended to mislead and had been confused by the Electoral Commission’s registration form’

‘The judge made no comment on Grimes’ allegations of abuse of process by the commission. However he did observe that even had the offence been committed, it would not have warranted the maximum possible fine of £20,000 that the commission chose to impose.‘
 

sun_tzu

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I was referencing the judges comments which were:

‘Dight ruled that the commission’s notice imposing the fine should be withdrawn. He added that even if Grimes had committed the offence, it would not have justified the fine of £20,000, the maximum possible under current law.’

‘Dight agreed with Grimes’ counsel that the campaigner had not intended to mislead and had been confused by the Electoral Commission’s registration form’

‘The judge made no comment on Grimes’ allegations of abuse of process by the commission. However he did observe that even had the offence been committed, it would not have warranted the maximum possible fine of £20,000 that the commission chose to impose.‘
then in what way does it say he was found not guilty BECAUSE of the size of fine like you say...

it says EVEN IF guilty it would not have justified £20k

the judge is saying there categorically the size of the fine would not have been justified not that the size of the fine had anything to do with guity or not - I mean its my third language you should be able to understand that better than me
 

TheGame

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then in what way does it say he was found not guilty BECAUSE of the size of fine like you say...

it says EVEN IF guilty it would not have justified £20k

the judge is saying there categorically the size of the fine would not have been justified not that the size of the fine had anything to do with guity or not - I mean its my third language you should be able to understand that better than me
I have a different interpretation of the case than you so don’t think we are going to agree on it. Anyways I’ve wasted enough time on someone I despise (Grimes that is) so probably should focus on something else. I only end up getting more irate after seeing him pop up everywhere.
 

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After being virtually non-existent all week, Starmer's given a largely disappointing PMQs today. Labour need to be tackling this crisis and the government's inept handling of it head on, not pussyfooting around.
 

sun_tzu

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After being virtually non-existent all week, Starmer's given a largely disappointing PMQs today. Labour need to be tackling this crisis and the government's inept handling of it head on, not pussyfooting around.
indeed if he cant pin Raab down hes got no chance with johnson
I'll reserve judgement till the commons is sitting properly and hes up against boris as the current format is rather gentile comared to the full on yaaaaaa...booooo... fest that PMQ's normally devloves to
 

redtilded121

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the tories are quick to suggest partisan politics when faced with any criticism as raab did today when a labour mp said the gov. should not give money to companies who use tax havens which Denmark is doing
 

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They shouldn't bother. If they wait 30 seconds, Sir Keir would dismiss it as partisan politics for them.
You’re going to get boring very quickly.
 

esmufc07

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After being virtually non-existent all week, Starmer's given a largely disappointing PMQs today. Labour need to be tackling this crisis and the government's inept handling of it head on, not pussyfooting around.
Rightly or wrongly, I don’t think the general public will take kindly to this crisis being seen to being ‘politicised’, so I think at the moment he’s just taking a more cautious approach and choosing specific points to criticise the government on, rather than just shouting murderers from the rooftops.
 

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Rightly or wrongly, I don’t think the general public will take kindly to this crisis being seen to being ‘politicised’, so I think at the moment he’s just taking a more cautious approach and choosing specific points to criticise the government on, rather than just shouting murderers from the rooftops.
The most recent polling from Ipsos Mori suggests the public think Piers Morgan (29%) is doing a better job at holding the government to account than Starmer (24%). Piers has taken a far more combative and rhetorical approach. I don’t think there’s much substance to the idea the public don’t want it ‘politicised’. I agree the gravity necessitates a need for caution and a kind of precision in criticism rather than broad cheap shots and point scoring, but there has never been a more important time to hold the government to account. Starmer’s efforts so far amount to a dereliction duty on that from what I’ve seen (or not seen - barely heard a peep recently). He has not mentioned the explosive Panorama report, for instance.
 

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This is Starmer shtick, so we shouldn't be surprised by it. He's a former lawyer, a knighted sir, at best centre ''left'' politically and is still very new to parliamentary politics(He won his seat in 2015).

If people wanted a labour leader to 'politicise' the current situation and be angry at the government then they should of voted for someone else. It's going to be 4 years of this slow middle of the road approach.
 

Buster15

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Rightly or wrongly, I don’t think the general public will take kindly to this crisis being seen to being ‘politicised’, so I think at the moment he’s just taking a more cautious approach and choosing specific points to criticise the government on, rather than just shouting murderers from the rooftops.
Yes. Agree with that.
He has already made a big impact on the narrative by raising the point about what is the plan for exiting the lockdown.

It is crystal clear that the government has no such plan. And even worse, doesn't trust people with anything other than the stay at home mantra.

He knows that the bulk of the public don't yet want this situation to be politicised. So he is quite right to be seen to not be doing so.

Covid 19 is the only news. Nothing else YET.
But slowly that will change and his time will come.
 

Sweet Square

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Unfortunately Phillips dropped out... She would certainly have had a different approach today though.
Starmer is in a difficult position tbh because support for the government has gone up during this pandemic but

1. It's pretty clear this isn't him putting on a certain act due to the reason above but actually this slow non approach style is all he has, this is him at his best. If you can't get angry when the government is falling NHS workers and people in care homes then you never will.

2. When the breakfast telly man has better polling than it's clearly not a very good political strategy.

But again it's pointless getting frustrated by this' because it's not going to change. Anyways a dull centre left leader is at the moment the least of the Labour Party worries,
 

BobbyManc

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Unfortunately Phillips dropped out... She would certainly have had a different approach today though.
Phillips dropped out after coming out worst in a largely vapid leadership hustings that featured Starmer, Long-Bailey, Thornberry and Nandy. Quite some achievement. Her best (only, really) asset is her emotional oratory in the HoC which, when used sparingly, works for a back-bencher to win some plaudits and recognition but as a leader it's a completely different matter.

Also, aside from the legitimate criticism one could have of her, I don't think her impassioned displays from the despatch box would go down well given the traditional view of women, sexism and misogyny that still, unfortunately, consciously or otherwise colours judgement of public figures. That seems to be her default setting, too. She's too "unpolished" in her persona, for want of a better word, and as a woman I think that would especially harm her prospects if she were to be leader.
 

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Formby resigns within weeks, yet McNicol had to be bought off with a life peerage after sabotaging an election campaign. Maybe this says something about the individuals, maybe it says something about Corbyn's failure to clear the decks, but it definitely speaks to how broken the Labour party's internal structures are.
 

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He gets surprisingly little airtime or mention on Radio 5. I'm hard-pressed to remember a time where he's even been mentioned.
Kind of to be expected at the moment, with the pandemic saturating the news. They couldn't even do a launch event due to the lockdown. Add in the ultra low key PMQs and there are precious few ways for Labour to get Starmer in the public eye right now. People are behind the PM & Government right now because they recognise this is a national emergency and people want to do the right thing and be responsible. But soon people will be asking why the UK has such a bad death rate and why the UK dithered in those first few weeks. Add in the fact that we're in for a long hard recession, and Johnson is going to come under a lot of pressure in the coming months. That's the time that Starmer will need to show what he can do.
 

Shamwow

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Him calling the government's response "amazing" is probably going to bite us in the arse in the future.
 

Buster15

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Kind of to be expected at the moment, with the pandemic saturating the news. They couldn't even do a launch event due to the lockdown. Add in the ultra low key PMQs and there are precious few ways for Labour to get Starmer in the public eye right now. People are behind the PM & Government right now because they recognise this is a national emergency and people want to do the right thing and be responsible. But soon people will be asking why the UK has such a bad death rate and why the UK dithered in those first few weeks. Add in the fact that we're in for a long hard recession, and Johnson is going to come under a lot of pressure in the coming months. That's the time that Starmer will need to show what he can do.
Good assessment and I agree with your points.
His time will come and the most important thing at the moment is to be seen to be supportive at arms length and not to give the Tories or their media friends any opportunity to attack Labour.
 

Buster15

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At today's PMQ, the difference between the specific and appropriate questions being asked by Starmer and the inaccurate and waffling responses by the PM are clear and stark.
 

sun_tzu

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At today's PMQ, the difference between the specific and appropriate questions being asked by Starmer and the inaccurate and waffling responses by the PM are clear and stark.
he was a lot better this week than last week ... that said he was on solid ground given the official UK death toll overtook Italy yesterday but starmer did a decent job
 

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At today's PMQ, the difference between the specific and appropriate questions being asked by Starmer and the inaccurate and waffling responses by the PM are clear and stark.
In a way this is a topic that suits Starmer since he's a details guy, but the gap between Johnson & Starmer was pretty wide. It wasn't just a question of delivery, Starmer looked like he understood the topic and Johnson didn't. Johnson's waffling style can sometimes make him hard to pin down, but here it just made him look like he didn't know what he was talking about.

I'm not a great fan of the hee-haw aspect of PMQs, but it did seem a shame today when Starmer did so well. Kind of like scoring a great goal in behind closed doors game, the lack of crowd noise makes it feel flat. But that was an easy win for Starmer there.
 

Buster15

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he was a lot better this week than last week ... that said he was on solid ground given the official UK death toll overtook Italy yesterday but starmer did a decent job
Accepted.
Although I believe that it is more than just that.

His questions are so much more thought out and forensic.
And he immediately had Boris on the back foot.

He is far more clever than previous Labour leaders and the next few weeks are going to be interesting.
 

Buster15

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In a way this is a topic that suits Starmer since he's a details guy, but the gap between Johnson & Starmer was pretty wide. It wasn't just a question of delivery, Starmer looked like he understood the topic and Johnson didn't. Johnson's waffling style can sometimes make him hard to pin down, but here it just made him look like he didn't know what he was talking about.

I'm not a great fan of the hee-haw aspect of PMQs, but it did seem a shame today when Starmer did so well. Kind of like scoring a great goal in behind closed doors game, the lack of crowd noise makes it feel flat. But that was an easy win for Starmer there.
Good assessment.
As Starmer grows into this job, the difference between the two styles will certainly widen.

Boris is nothing without the support of his baying mates.