David Cameron & the History leading up to him

[Jan Klimkowski]

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Tory party 'has moral duty' to return £440,000 in donations from Polly Peck

Former party treasurer says if David Cameron 'is an honourable man' he will give back cash received from Asil Nadir's company


Andrew Sparrow and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 August 2012 11.22 BST


A former Conservative treasurer has said that the party has a "moral duty" to return the £440,000 it received from Asil Nadir's Polly Peck company in the 1980s.

After Nadir received a 10-year jail sentence on Thursday for stealing almost £29m from the company he built up to be a global player, Lord McAlpine said the donation was "tainted" and had to be returned.

McAlpine, who was Conservative party treasurer from 1975 to 1990, told the Daily Mail that when Polly Peck first donated to the party, Nadir was "a dashing figure who was admired across Europe for his business flair".

"But frankly the moment [Nadir] fled the country in 1993, to avoid criminal charges, it was obvious to me he was a complete conman. Frankly, the Tories should have given the money back in 1993.

"Today the case is even clearer. There is a moral imperative for the money to be returned. The money was not Asil Nadir's to give although we thought it was at the time.

"Therefore the Tory party has a duty to return it. It will speak volumes about the character of the modern Tory party if they don't do the right thing. I trust that David Cameron is an honourable man."

McAlpine, who left the Conservatives before the 1997 election to campaign for the Referendum party before later rejoining the Tories, also said Lady Thatcher would have wanted the money returned.

"If Margaret Thatcher was still leader of the party I am absolutely certain she would have ordered the party to repay the lot. I can hear her barking down the phone: 'Alistair, we can't keep that man's money'," he said.

But on Friday, the Conservatives rejected McAlpine's call for the money to be returned. "The Conservative party has no record of having received donations from Asil Nadir," a spokesman said. "Donations were received from Polly Peck companies more than 22 years ago; these were accepted in good faith from what was then considered to be a leading British company.

"We have seen no evidence that money donated to the Conservative party from the Polly Peck group was stolen. But we have consistently said, as Norman Fowler, then party chairman, did in 1993, 'obviously if it is proved that that money was stolen it will be returned'."

The Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who also wants the Tories to return the money, has written to the party highlighting newspaper reports saying that Touche Ross, the Polly Peck administrators, warned the party in 1993 that £365,000 of the £440,000 it received came from money defrauded from the Polly Peck empire.

But a party spokesman said it was not aware of the Touche Ross report. He also questioned whether it ever existed.