Latest: Huhne takes up to £20’000 of tax payers money to help fund Eastleigh Lib Dem Association campaigns

Electoral Commission documents show that since Huhne’s selection for the parliamentary seats of Eastleigh his association has received over £20’000 pounds of tax payers money from the Liberal Democrat Council group in Eastleigh Borough.

One such donation received this year totalled over £5000. While other Lib Dem and Labour MP’s also cream off money from council allowance funds, the Electoral Commission documents reveal that Huhne’s opponent for the Leadership, Nick Clegg, received no such donations of tax payer’s money in his fight to win the seat of Sheffield Hallam.

Huhne has said consistently in recent weeks that the public should have the right to ‘tick a box’ at general elections to indicate where they wish tax payers money to be donated yet it seems that while no such system is currently in place huhne believes it is still acceptable to receive tax payer funding to run his local association without any mandate from the electorate.

Huhne hypocrisy on campaign funding revealed

Exclusive: Huhne hypocrisy on campaign funding revealed

Donations from top businessmen are funnelled through group similar to Tories ‘West Midlands Industrial Council’

Developing

Huhne-watch can today reveal Chris Huhne as a hypocrite after revelations that money used to fund his successful General Election campaign was funnelled trough an organisation called the ‘European Liberal Democrat City Forum’. Huhne-Watch can exclusively reveal that the forum took donations from some of Britain’s most influential businessmen and company Chief Executives.

Electoral Commission records show the group donated £6000 to Huhne’s Eastleigh Campaign yet what Huhne does not disclose in his declaration of Members Interests or with the Electoral Commission are any of the names of these businessmen or how much each of them individually donated at the fundraising dinner in question.

The group took donations from some of Britain’s top business leaders including several top Chief Executives and we are in Huhne-Watch has the full list of those involved in the £6000 donation but are giving Mr Huhne the chance to declare the names before we do.

Election leaflets that Huhne published in 2005 claimed “Eastleigh Liberal Democrats rely on small donations unlike the Conservatives who take large donations from big business” but it seems clear now that Huhne has taken money from some of the top businessmen in Britain. It is not yet clear whether these donations were personal or whether the Businessmen in question expensed the donations at the 2004 dinner to their respective companies.

Further more, Huhne, a millionaire, who consistently criticises fellow millionaire Lord Ashcroft for donating large sums of money to Conservatives has himself donated over £20’000 pounds of his own money to his association since his selection.

Huhne-Watch agrees with Chris that party funding should be transparent. Therefore in the interest of transparency Huhne-watch has made the Huhne campaign (in the form of Anna Werrin) aware of their questions and awaits the full publication of the list of businessmen who donated money to Chris via the 2004 dinner from which Chris accepted a £6000 political donation?

Huhne 4 Leader - Huhne-Watch Back

Chris' new leadership bid has got Huhne-Watch all excited and it appears you are too if the ammount of emails we recieved today is anything to go by.

So it is with great joy that Huhne-Watch is back.

This is going to be a laugh!

huhnewatch@hotmail.co.uk

Huhne's Washing Machine the size of Dot Cotton's?

A glourious piece in the Times showing the wonderful delusions of eco-warrior Chris!

Under the headline "Carbon caluclator is the latest tool for keeping up with the neighbours" Chris claims that his Household emissions are lower than those of the Director of Friends of the Earth, Tony Juniper.

All very commendable Chris! Until one looks at the detail...

The Times writes: Household emissions 8.2 tonnes per year (USING ONLY HIS CONSTITUENCY HOUSE, NOT INCLUDING LONDON HOME WHERE HE ACTUALLY LIVES WHILE PLOTTING AGAINT MING)

The Times goes on to say about Huhne: MEMBERS OF HOUSEHOLD 5. USES DISHWASHER FOUR TIMES A WEEK; WASHING MACHINE TWICE A WEEK

So Chris would have us believe that there are 5 people living in his constituency home?
Is Mrs Huhne travelling up and down each day to her job at the DTI?

Assuming a clean top for each one each day is 35 tops, the underwear, and 5 beds needing changing he then expects us mere mortals to believe his house only uses the washing machine twice a week?? The machine must be the size of Dot Cotton's in EastEnders.

Come on Chris whats your carbon footprint when you include your muli million pound main home in Cresent Grove in Clapham? Or the foreign pad?

Don't try and jupe Mr Junniper Chris.

Madly Ambitious

From the Times sketch 22nd June

Just had to share this with you...even the press are starting to catch you out Chris.

"There were hardly any LibDems in the Chamber for Environment Questions and only one of any talent (Vince Cable). Where were they? Perhaps sitting by their phones awaiting a call from the Great Gordo. Chris Huhne, the madly ambitious environment spokesman, had brought his phone with him and switched it on. "Brrring, brrring." It was the only noise in the chamber that mattered. "Answer it! Its Gordon Brown!" cried a Tory. Everyone burst out laughing and Mr Huhne, tingling with the knowledge that everyone recognised the inevitability of such a call, made a great show of silencing his phone. Later he stood up to ask a question about nuclear power. Sir Patrick Cormack, a Tory grandee of almost unparalleled talent, shouted at the Labour front bench "Answer with respect. He may be your boss next week." I thought Chris Huhne was going to die of happiness.

Thanks for stopping by Winchester

Glad to see that Winchester Lib Dems, like hundreds of their fellow colleagues, are regular readers of Huhne-Watch.

After protesting at mail merged letters from the Tories, Huhne must have been upset when Winchester Lib Dem Martin Todd then passed off Huhne’s Guardian column on green issues as his own. After a visit to Huhne Watch, Todd’s minions now seem to have changed their mail-merged news story.

With visitors from more than 10 countries and an unhealthy amount of traffic from Lib Dem HQ, Huhne Watch goes from strength to strength.

Thank god for Oyster

My mate Chris got into a bit of bother a few weeks back. Turns out he had claimed thousands in petrol (yes, eco watchers, petrol) yet virtually nothing on train tickets;

"I'm afraid I managed to lose my rail charge card, or actually it was stolen . . . and I didn't then charge back the subsequent rail travel.'' said Huhne. But in his local paper, the Southern Daily Echo, Huhne offered a rather different story. "I don't always claim back the expenses from rail travel as I travel second class, which is quite cheap,'' he said, making no mention of the stolen card.

So no doubt Chris is now trying to find the card after South West trains announced a rise in off-peak fares by as much as 20 per cent from his Eastleigh constituency to London Waterloo.

"There can be no justification for making off-peak travellers pay so much more when the trains are far from full, and when there is no extra cost to carrying an extra passenger," said Mr Huhne. Well one extra passenger South West could carry is Huhne.

Luckily for Chris there is no need to find the card as all he needs to do to get from his million pound London mansion to Westminster is to top up his Oyster Card.

'Male' Merging

Huhnewatch is drawn to Chris’ latest Guardan article*

Apparently Chris is upset to have received a ‘mail merged letter’ from David Cameron.

In the article “Blue won't be green David Cameron's environmental rhetoric is not reflected in the actions of his party” Chris complains - “David Cameron has once again written urging me to support the Conservative party. His mail-merge letter says attractive things about the need to tackle climate change”

Chris won’t be happy then with Winchester Lib Dem Candidate Martin Todd who seems to have mail merged Huhnes entire article into his website.

http://winld.org.uk/

Next to a picture entitled “Martin Todd and local lib dems choking in Tory pollution (what is it about Winchester Lib Dems and chocking on things) the candidate lifts Huhne’s entire article from the Guardian word for word as the top story on his campaign webpage and not a mention of Chris in sight!

Wonder if the Guardian knows they spend £5000 a year so Chris can write Lib Dem campaigning templates.

Mailmerging. Tut Tut.

*(Register of Members' Interests – Guardian – up to £5000)

Tip Off's fly - 300 stop by

Since the launch of Huhne-Watch less than a week ago we have had 300 visitors.

Huhne-Watch is also greatful to the 3 lib dem workers who have sent in tip-offs.

Tip us off about what Chris is up to.

huhnewatch@hotmail.co.uk

Huhne the hypocrite?

Huhne-Watch comes across this from Huffington Post. Well worth a read!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/britains-liberals-elect-_b_16661.html

These are Huhne-Watch's favs!

"It only got better. Curious about the insider fruits available to a financial columnist who suddenly enters the very market he was reporting on - and interested to learn about his wealth - his former colleagues in the financial world started investigating his investment portfolio. It turned out that on many of the issues he'd spoken out on to court votes among the 73,000 Liberal Party voters - he had a greater depth of understanding than the average politician.

For example, Liberal Democrats concerned about the increasing threat of clandestine surveillance systems - discovered that Huhne was one of the first and biggest investors in a company called Irisys that makes cameras that allow retail stores to discreetly film their customers with thermal imaging. Huhne holds nearly half a million US dollars worth of its stock. Those worried about the exploitation of Third World countries found out that Huhne had over US$100,000 invested in Centamin, a company mining for gold in eastern Egypt and recently in heated dispute with the Egyptian government"

MP's return to constituencies for recess. Huhne heads to Milbank.

While most MP’s are campaigning hard in their constituencies this recess, Chris is on Sky News at the moment discussing the Iran Crisis! Of course foreign affairs and the environment overlap all the time…..

Huhne-Watches Sky News producer friend explains. “Millbank tried to get a senior Lib Dem on to discuss Des Brownes statement. Sadly most of them were on holiday or in the constituency campaigning for the May elections. Huhne was the only one we could get at short notice. He only lives down the road in Lambeth apparently”

A tale of two stories

This little nugget from the Telegraph should start us off nicely. Whats the truth?

Huhne trained at little expense

Publication date: 4 April 2007
Source: The Daily Telegraph
(c) 2007 Telegraph Group Limited, London

It's been six weeks since the publication of MPs' travel expenses, but Spy has discovered something of a discrepancy in the justifications for spending so little on rail travel being given by Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman.

In 2005-06, Huhne, the MP for Eastleigh, claimed pounds 3,284 for travel to and from London in his car (a Toyota Prius, admittedly), but reclaimed a mere pounds 176 in rail tickets. On Radio 4's Any Questions in February, he justified the low rail claim thus: "I'm afraid I managed to lose my rail charge card, or actually it was stolen . . . and I didn't then charge back the subsequent rail travel.''

But in his local paper, the Southern Daily Echo, Huhne offered a rather different story. "I don't always claim back the expenses from rail travel as I travel second class, which is quite cheap,'' he said, making no mention of the stolen card.

So which version is true? "Well it's both,'' he told Spy, "but I don't want to bother going into long explanations because it just sounds lame. You've got me on a train as we speak.''

Huhne-Watch Launched

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