C’mon DUP – name that donor

My old colleague the excellent award-winning David Gordon has run into a DUP brick wall over who donated the money to buy Peter Robinson an armour plated limo once owned by the deposed Shah of Iran. Was it the late Fred Fraser who you’ll recall coughed up 25k start-up funding for Iris’s young lover’s now famous cafe ? The DUP declines to say who was responsible for this piece of south American-style grandiose Robinsoniana. Are the DUP hiding behind the exemption granted to NI parties for security reasons not to make public the names of political donors? At the time, the limit of a donation from a single person was 5k. I’m not clear if clubbing up to buy a car is covered. If it is the DUP will have declared it at the time. Voluntary disclosure of the donor’s identity alive or dead would clear it up. Like the NI public, the Electoral Commission hold donor names in confidence and are keen to end this uneasy arrangement which will be reviewed later this year. If however they suspect a donation breaks the rules, they will challenge the party. Will they do so? They’re already looking into a donation Peter made from his salary to the party.

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