Peter Cruddas was exposed by The Sunday Times whose reporters posing as international financiers filmed him offering the chance to meet Cameron in return for joining the “Premier League” of Tory party donors.
The footage shows Cruddas further suggested that they can get major concessions from the PM during the visit saying “it will be awesome for your business.”
“You do really pick up a lot of information. But within that room everything is confidential – you can ask him practically any question you want,” he was filmed as saying.
After his resignation Cruddas claimed in a statement that he had exaggerated what he could do and that Cameron does not permit people to see him just for donations.
“I deeply regret any impression of impropriety arising from my bluster in that conversation. It was categorically not the case that I could offer, or that David Cameron would consider, any access as a result of a donation,” he said.
The scandal has turned into a fiasco for the Conservative party while triggering a war of words with the opposition.
“Unlike the Labour party where union donations are traded for party policies, donations to the Conservative Party do not buy party or government policy,” a Conservative party spokesman said.
However, Labour hit back at the Conservatives indicating they are going to make Cameron answer for the embarrassment.
“Time and again the Tory party has been the obstacle to capping donations from wealthy individuals. Now it appears obvious why. Pensioners, the young unemployed and squeezed middle families cannot afford to buy this sort of access or influence which is just another reason why this Government is out of touch with the overwhelming majority of British people,” Labour MP Michael Dugher said before Cruddas’s resignation.
“David Cameron should come clean. Will the PM say exactly what he knew and when about an apparent effort to sell access and influence in Downing Street?” Dugher added.
AMR/HE
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