Jon Mendelsohn - the "ethical" lobbyist - my arse says Greg Palast - and fat Harriet's fund raiser

Greg Palast reviews his time in exposing Jon Mendelsohn the LLM "ethical" lobyist how the "fix" worked. .. Tesco , Murdoch ... and ...

What’s odd here are the protestations of shock at the behavior of Mendelsohn, described in the Guardian as an "ethical" lobbyist. "Ethical" my arse.

It was exactly nine years ago that Mendelsohn and his lobby firm partners were caught trading cash for access. How this Mendelsohn character ended up heading Labour Party fundraising and how he obtained the sobriquet ‘ethical’ is the real shocker.

I know a few things about this Mendelsohn. The "businessman" with the hidden recorder was me. In June 1998, joined by my recorder and a real US businessman, Mark Swedlund, who designed my elaborate corporate front, I met Mr. Mendelsohn at his tony Soho London office. There Mendelsohn confirmed what was already on tape from his partners in the lobby firm he founded, LLM.
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But the PM embraced Mr. Let’s-Make-A-Deal. The reason was made clear to me by Mendelsohn himself, a man as brainy as he is cynical and wealthy. Those many years ago, at the dawn of the Blair regime, Mendelsohn handed me a confidential manifesto he’d penned for LLM clients only. It was a map of the soul of New Labour.

Here was a chilling combination of Mendelsohn, Mandelson and Nietzsche. "AN OLD WORLD IS DISAPPEARING AND A NEW ONE EMERGING," he announced in upper case. In the "Passing World" were "ideology" and "conviction" - which would now be replaced by "Pragmatism" and "Consumption." "Buying" would replace "Belief."

And ultimately, in this Brave New Labour World, style was all: "WHAT YOU DO," wrote Mendelsohn, was passé, replaced by, "HOW YOU DO IT."

So why demand Mendelsohn’s head now? Gordon Brown is a prudent man whom, I suspect, reads a newspaper or two - and knew exactly whom he had positioned to fill his party’s coin sacks. Mendelsohn is just a gun for hire, a forgettable factotum. I wouldn’t place the blame on the hired gun, but on the man whose finger is on the trigger.

For more MWC Media with Conscience

Meanwhile David Grossman at Newsnight poses 10 Questions for fat Harriet .. especially about her fund raising bash at the Ministry of Sound on 5th December .

This lunchtime I filed a series of 11 questions to the Labour Party - I'm still waiting for a response Here are the questions:

1 How did Harriet Harman fund her campaign for the deputy leadership election?

2 How much did the campaign cost to run in total?

3 Is the loan for £10,000 pounds from the National Westminster Bank taken out on the 3rd October 2006 the only loan she has entered into to fund her campaign?

4 Why is she still raising money for a campaign that finished on 22nd June 2007?

5 Where will the money go that is raised at the event planned for 5th December 2007 at Sounds Nightclub in Leicester Square?

6 If the money raised at this event goes towards settling campaign debts, where are the required records of those debts?

7 Did she borrow money in her own name for the purposes of the campaign without declaring it to the electoral commission as a loan?

8 Did she borrow money against any assets owned jointly with Jack Dromey for the purpose of funding her campaign?

9 Why is Harriet Harman using her office in the House of Commons as a base from which to raise party political funds, in contravention of Parliamentary rules? (the initiation for her fund raiser on the 5th December invites people to send donations to Charlotte Montague at her office at the House of Commons)

10 Is Charlotte Montague’s salary paid from Harriet Harman’s MP’s allowances?

11 If Charlotte Montague is paid from Harriet Harman’s MP’s allowances why is she working on Harriet Harman’s campaign from Harriet Harman’s office at the House of Commons? Why has she not registered this in the relevant register of interests for MP’s staff?

Update : 1st December 8.00 - Put yer party frocks away, Harriet has cancelled her fund raising bash. Now we wonder what the Ministry of Sound charge for a cancellation at this busy time of the year ? - anyone want to subscribe to the cancelled fund raiser ?