GM baron makes record donations to Labour (2 April 2003)

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As reported below Lord Sainsbury has just written a cheque to the Labour
Party for £2.5 million to keep it afloat. He is the government's most
prominent backer of GM technology in agriculture.

Lord Sainsbury's personal, political and financial interests
span biotechnology, food retailing, and driving UK government policy in
relation to technology and trade. He is simultaneously
(http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/LordSainsbury.htm ):

* the multi-billionaire Science Minister in charge of promoting
biotechnology at the UK's Department of Trade and Industry
* a member of the cabinet biotechnology committee responsible for national
policy on GM crops and foods
* a major personal investor in GM agricultural biotechnology
* a leading member of the UK supermarket giant 'Sainsbury' family (former
chairman and major shareholder of J Sainsbury plc - personal and immediate
family annual share dividend estimated at £36 million in 1998)
* a multi-million pound donor to the Labour Party (giving Labour its biggest
single donation in September 1997 and much more since) and made a life peer
by Tony Blair 3 October 1997

Money may not buy you happiness but can it buy you influence?

NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
The Acceptable Face Of Ag-biotech
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/monsantoMASpossibilities.htm
'Peace Store' - shop for peace at:
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/peacestore.htm
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April 02, 2003
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-10-631787,00.html

London Times, 2 April 2003

Sainsbury faces inquiry over £2.5m gift to party
By Melissa Kite, Political Correspondent

LORD SAINSBURY of Turville faces being called before an inquiry into the
extent of his multimillion-pound donations to Labour.

The billionaire Minister for Science was accused by politicians on all sides
yesterday of colluding in a form of political corruption after Labour
announced that he had made a £2.5 million donation.

The gift is believed to be the largest single donation in the party’s
history and takes his contributions to Labour since 1999 to £8.5 million.

Lord Sainsbury, a junior minister at the Department of Trade and Industry
since 1998 and a peer since 1997, is among a list of possible witnesses at
the forthcoming inquiry by the Electoral Commission, which is to make
recommendations to Parliament on future arrangements for party funding. It
will launch its investigation in May.

But sources close to the commission, which has the power to recommend action
on single big donations, said it was likely that major donors such as Lord
Sainsbury would be called.

Theresa May, the Conservative Party chairman, told BBC Radio 4’s Today
programme: “The fact that Lord Sainsbury is a government minister — he was
appointed by the Prime Minister and, indeed, he is in a ministerial position
where he’s making decisions which could have commercial consequences — I
think raises real questions about this particular donation.

“Politics is better in this country if political parties are funded by large
numbers of people rather than relying on large donations from a smaller
number of people.”

Mark Seddon, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, claimed such
donations were causing Labour to lose members amid criticism from the
grassroots that the party was now “in the pockets of the powerful and the
rich”.

He told the Today programme: “In any other country I think a government
minister donating such vast amounts of money and effectively buying a
political party would be seen for what it is, a form of corruption of the
political process.

“This was a criticism of the Conservatives when they were in government and
increasingly people are looking in at the political parties and saying, ‘Why
don’t they have more members?’ ” The Labour Party should instead raise funds
by appealing for members while political donations should be capped and
banned altogether for ministers, Mr Seddon added.

In a statement yesterday, Lord Sainsbury said: “In our democracy political
parties have to raise funds to campaign and put their policies to the
electorate, and as a proud supporter of the Labour Party I am happy to be in
a position where I can make a contribution to its ongoing work.”

David Triesman, the party’s general secretary, said: “As a member of Labour’
s audit committee, Mark Seddon should be aware that the largest area of
growth in the party’s income last year was indeed from individual members
and supporters making small contributions.

“The Labour Party has the broadest base of funding of any party, with the
largest proportion of our income coming from small donations.”

A Labour spokesman said there was no particular significance in the timing
of the donation. The party has a £6 million overdraft and a £4.5 million
mortgage on its London headquarters.

Lord Sainsbury has made other large charitable donations, reflecting his
interests in technical education, mental health and Third World development
through his charitable trust, the Gatsby Foundation.
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[Sainsbury/Gatsby background from NGIN Genetic Network News - Issue 4]

http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/issue4.htm
Lord Sainsbury’s financial links to JIC

"When ngin challenged the independence of the John Innes Centre (see GNN3)
and drew attention to the big corporate investment from Zeneca and DuPont
and the JIC's other corporate sponsors (Monsanto etc), the JIC replied that
it guarded its independence from industry jealously and it pointed to the
extent of its public and charitable funding. That funding is coming into
question.

The JIC’s 'charitable funding' is, in fact, critical to the work of its
Sainsbury Laboratory. The Sainsbury Laboratory’s main grant comes from a
Sainsbury family trust, known as the Gatsby Foundation. A key contributor to
this trust is one Lord Sainsbury, the current Science Minister, the former
boss of the supermarket giant and a major Sainsbury’s shareholder.

The Gatsby Foundation has laid great stress on encouraging the genetic
engineering of plants and crops,  mainly through grants to the JIC (over 2
million pounds last year alone) as well as through grants which link in
overseas countries to JIC-based plant biotechnology projects.  As Science
Minister, Lord Sainsbury appears to have been encouraging exactly the same
kind of collaborative links.

Now the shadow Trade and Industry spokesman, John Redwood, has dawn
attention to Lord Sainsbury's financial connections with the Gatsby
Foundation and its big investments in genetic engineering. He and others,
like Friends of the Earth, also note Lord Sainsbury's history of business
investments in biotech companies and are asking:  is this really  the man to
make decisions on behalf of the British people about the genetic engineering
of food?"