[political finance] British loans to parties - and the payoff

In the wake of the 'cash-for-honours' scandal in the UK, the Electoral Commission has revealed that the Labour Party has loans of £23.4m and the Tories of £35.3m. These revelations come after the scandal forced the Government to amend the electoral laws so that all loans above £5000 to party head offices and loans of £1000 to local offices, have to be declared. The police are also about to end their investigation into the scandal. Apparently, in 1993 - when the Tories were in power - research showed that 'although only 6.2% of British companies gave money to the Tories between 1979 and 1992, 50% of peerages and knighthoods for "services to industry" went to the executives of Conservative donors". Now with Labour in power, '58.54% of all donors giving more than £50,000 to the Labour party receive an honour.' Yet again it seems that parties in power are able to use the levers of honours and peerages to gain financial favour for themselves.