Co-op made no profit this year.

[SpikeMac]

Are you trying to catch out Tory voters with a short memory you scamp? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sainsbury,_Baron_Sainsbury_of_Turville

 

The rolly eyes were deliberate:D

[altus]

It really isn't at all similar to point out companies also donate to other parties. Those other companies are not the ones knocking off the divi that folk built up through buying their Ginger Nuts from the company each week in the expectation of getting a loyalty dividend..

 

It is similar though because those other companies donate to political parties rather than give their shareholders higher dividends.

[algy]

Not misleading at all. The Co-op sponsor a number of Labour MPs. Here is a list.

 

 

Jon Ashworth, Leicester South,

Adrian Bailey, West Bromwich West,

Ed Balls, Morley and Outwood,

Luciana Berger, Liverpool Wavertree,

Geraint Davies, Swansea West,

Jim Dobbin, Heywood and Middleton,

Stella Creasy, Walthamstow,

Stephen Doughty, Cardiff South and Penarth,

Gemma Doyle, West Dunbartonshire,

Louise Ellman, Liverpool Riverside,

Chris Evans, Islwyn,

Tom Greatrex, Rutherglen and Hamilton West

Mark Hendrick, Preston,

Meg Hillier, Hackney South and Shoreditch,

Cathy Jamieson, Kilmarnock and Loudon,

Mark Lazarowicz, Edinburgh North and Leith,

Chris Leslie, Nottingham East,

Andy Love, Edmonton,

Seema Malhotra, Feltham and Heston,

Meg Munn, Sheffield Heeley,

Lucy Powell, Manchester Central,

Steve Reed, Croydon North,

Linda Riordan, Halifax,

Andy Sawford, Corby,

Gavin Shuker, Luton South,

Gareth Thomas, Harrow West,

Stephen Twigg, Liverpool West Derby,

John Woodcock, Barrow and Furness,

 

It really isn't at all similar to point out companies also donate to other parties. Those other companies are not the ones knocking off the divi that folk built up through buying their Ginger Nuts from the company each week in the expectation of getting a loyalty dividend..

 

And just to get the facts right. The Co-op are donating £1 million this year to the Labour Party and the MPs listed. The directors of the Co-op group are discussing whether they should ballot member (that is folk who buy Ginger Nuts and fozen peas from their stores or use their banks) about whether they should continue to hand over money to the Labour Party instead of using it towards a divi.

 

And just to get the facts right, the members are being balloted about whether given the financial situation in the co-op movement they think it right to continue the contribution to the Labour Party. There is no direct connection between the donation and the payment of a dividend.

 

And I would have thought there was a direct comparison with company shareholders. Why shouldn't they have a right to vote on whether their dividend should be reduced to pay money into Conservative Party coffers?

 

Not everyone shops at the Co-op just because they want their dividend. Many customers aren't members, so don't receive any dividend. Many people are members because they believe in co-ops.

[cgksheff]

The divi has been affected by the performance of the Coop group as a whole. Not just the food retail division.

The Group is suffering from some serious mismanagement by typical bankers who continue to expect their bonuses while shafting the membership.

It is still a cooperative... so use your vote.

[caparo]

Are you trying to catch out Tory voters with a short memory you scamp? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sainsbury,_Baron_Sainsbury_of_Turville

 

That's pretty funny baring in mind Lord Sainsbury said he wouldn't give any more donations to Labour because Miliband was a mediocre politician :hihi:

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3763195.ece

 

The multimillionaire businessman and philanthropist who has given more than £12 million to the Labour Party has branded Ed Miliband an “average” politician, with an uninspiring political vision.

 

In a rare interview, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who bankrolled Labour through the Blair and Brown years, told The Times that he had no intention of donating to the party again.

[SpikeMac]

That's pretty funny baring in mind Lord Sainsbury said he wouldn't give any more donations to Labour because Miliband was a mediocre politician :hihi:

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3763195.ece

 

The multimillionaire businessman and philanthropist who has given more than £12 million to the Labour Party has branded Ed Miliband an “average” politician, with an uninspiring political vision.

 

In a rare interview, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who bankrolled Labour through the Blair and Brown years, told The Times that he had no intention of donating to the party again.

 

He also said that Cameron and Clegg are mediocre and that this wasn't the reason for stopping his donations.

[caparo]

He also said that Cameron and Clegg are mediocre and that this wasn't the reason for stopping his donations.

 

Is that a fact? I'm sure that you can provide a link to that.

 

Actually all this leaves the Labour Party a bit in the clag. After Ed told the unions where to stick their donations, Sainsbury pulls his donations and the Co-op can no longer afford to make their donations. That leaves a pretty big hole in Ed's finances. Although it isn't a surprise as Ed and his mates left a pretty big hole in the country's finances too.

 

Just one more point though. The Labour Party obtained £34 million in soft loans from the Co-op Bank. I doubt the folk tasked with looking at the massive losses turned in by the Co-op are going to allow these loans to the party in future at anything other than a commercial rate. I think the party membership might need to stick their hands in their pockets pretty soon.

[WeX]

Is that a fact? I'm sure that you can provide a link to that.

 

Actually all this leaves the Labour Party a bit in the clag. After Ed told the unions where to stick their donations, Sainsbury pulls his donations and the Co-op can no longer afford to make their donations. That leaves a pretty big hole in Ed's finances. Although it isn't a surprise as Ed and his mates left a pretty big hole in the country's finances too.

 

Just one more point though. The Labour Party obtained £34 million in soft loans from the Co-op Bank. I doubt the folk tasked with looking at the massive losses turned in by the Co-op are going to allow these loans to the party in future at anything other than a commercial rate. I think the party membership might need to stick their hands in their pockets pretty soon.

 

I thought Brown and a few others had to bail out the Labour party a few years before the last GE.

[SpikeMac]

Is that a fact? I'm sure that you can provide a link to that.

 

 

If you insist.

 

Open carefully, contains right wing claptrap.

 

You could have done that yourself though:rolleyes:

[caparo]

If you insist.

 

Open carefully, contains right wing claptrap.

 

You could have done that yourself though:rolleyes:

 

Well yes I could but I wanted you to provide another link to a Labour Party member who was made a Lord by the Labour Party leadership in return for providing millions of pounds in funding say that the current leadership was a bit crap and he wouldn't give them any more cash. :D

 

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/05/13/no-money-for-mediocrity-average-miliband-told

 

Ed Miliband has only "average" political skills, former Labour party bankroller Lord Sainsbury has declared.

 

The groceries multimillionaire donated over £12 million to the New Labour cause during Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's time in power, but has told the Times he is not planning on providing any more cash for the party.

 

He even suggested he had picked out future leadership potential among the shadow Cabinet, but declined to offer any names because he "wouldn't want to blight their careers by singling them out".

 

In terms of political skills, I think he's average. Average in the sense that I think Nick Clegg and David Cameron are pretty average," he said of Miliband.

 

Sainsbury is full of regrets about the mistakes made by New Labour in its 13 years in power in a new book, Progressive Capitalism.

 

"I believed the policies we [Labour] had developed in opposition would increase the prosperity of the country and create a fairer society," he argued.

 

"But in government, I gradually came to realise that our thinking largely reflected the dominant neoliberal political economy of the time, which was not a useful basis for developing policies to achieve our goals."

 

Sainsbury's comments follow a scathing assessment of Miliband's leadership at the weekend from Peter Mandelson, another key architect of New Labour.

 

The peer said Miliband's 'one nation' tag was "patently" an insufficiently robust platform on which Labour could win the next general election at the Progress conference on Saturday.

 

"You have to be more than a slogan and more than a label to get people to vote for you," he said. "So much is obvious."