Blair Foes Demand Inquiry on Enron
LONDON Opposition legislators in Britain are demanding formal inquiries into contacts between the Labour Party of Prime Minister Tony Blair and executives of the bankrupt Enron Corp., asserting that Enron's lobbying may have wrought policy changes that favored the U.S. energy giant's businesses here.
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Through a spokesman, Mr. Blair on Monday rejected "absolutely" any suggestion that the government had behaved improperly in its dealings with Enron.
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But he acknowledged that, on four occasions dating to 1998, government ministers dealing with regulatory or energy issues had met with Enron executives.
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That was one year after Mr. Blair's party gained power.
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A Labour party official also acknowledged that the party had accepted about $51,000 from Enron, not in cash but as sponsorship for events.
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One of the most perilous accusations in British politics is that of "sleaze" - the label attached to officials and legislators who accept cash in return for providing rich people with access to decision-making politicians. The term dogged the closing years of the last Conservative administration before 1997.
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One of the very first scandals of Mr. Blair's term was a party contribution from Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One car-racing chief. The money was seen as a bid to influence government policy on tobacco advertising.
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Ralph Hodge, the former chairman of Enron Europe, told a television interviewer late Monday that it had been "custom and practice" to sponsor events to meet ministers, civil servants and legislators.
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The money "was given in order to gain access and to at least know that you'd met the politicians concerned," he said, "and I do stress it was given to both parties." "Cash for access?" he asked. "No." But he acknowledged "a desire to meet with ministers, civil servants" and legislators.
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"Certainly sponsoring those events was seen to be positive in that regard," Mr. Hodge said.
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Mr. Hodge was made a commander of the British Empire, a government-awarded honor in January 2001.
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Labour party officials said Enron had bought tickets to dinners organized by the party and had helped sponsor a 1998 party congress by footing the $21,000 bill for drinks.
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Among other payments, the company also spent as much as $11,000 to attend a dinner in 1997. But Labour denied that Enron had made straight cash donations.
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The Conservative vice chairman, Tim Collins, said that there had been "significant donations" by Enron that had led to "very interesting coincidences" in policy shifts.
.
But David Triesman, the Labour Party general secretary, said, "The idea that a government switches its policy on energy a week after having a gala dinner is really among the more absurd claims I've heard in my political life."
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It was Mr. Triesman who confirmed that Labour had, however, received the equivalent of $51,000 from Enron in sponsorship of events.
.
The dispute was Page One news in British newspapers Tuesday.
.
"The Enron saga is threatening to stain Labour," the pro-Labour Guardian newspaper said.
.
"Having hammered the Conservatives over sleaze before 1997, Labour should not be surprised to be spattered when the mud starts flying," it said in an editorial.
.
"But given the paucity of the allegations and that its potential investigating body is the Labour-dominated parliamentary Public Administration Committee, none of the dirt is likely to stick," the Guardian said.
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"The same cannot be said of the Bush White House. What Enron did at Westminster was utterly dwarfed by its actions in Washington."
.
The Enron collapse has become a major story in broadsheet British newspapers and on television news shows. It has been depicted as, potentially, the Bush administration's equivalent of Watergate in the Nixon era or President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
.
To that extent, it has revived the perceptions, suspended after Sept. 11, that the Bush administration is extraordinarily close to the energy business.
.
Mr. Blair's office said that successive ministers, including former Trade Secretaries Peter Mandelson and Stephen Byers and Industry Ministers John Battle and Helen Liddell had met with Enron representatives.
.
But the prime minister had never met Enron executives, his office said.
.
Mr. Byers was present at the formal opening of Enron Europe's offices in London in February 2001.
.
"Yes, Enron representatives have met Government ministers from the Department of Trade and Industry over the course of the years since the government came to power," a spokesman said. "They are not alone in that and at some meetings they were there with representatives of other companies."
.
Trade secretaries play a vital regulatory role in determining whether deals are submitted for antitrust scrutiny.
.
Opposition politicians from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the third party in the British Parliament, have voiced concerns that Enron's purchase in 1998 of the utility Wessex Water had not been referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
.
They have also sought to link Enron's contributions to Labour with a decision in November 2000 to lift a ban on the construction of new gas-fired electric power stations.
.
That decision benefited Enron, which was one of six applicants whose plans for gas-fired power stations had been delayed. Enron had been seeking approval for a 1,200-megawatt station off the southern English coast on the Isle of Grain.
.
Matthew Taylor of the Liberal Democrats also said there had been a close relationship between Mr. Blair's party and the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, Enron's U.S. auditor, which is accused of shredding documents to avoid scrutiny.
.
Mr. Taylor said those ties dated to 1992, when Arthur Andersen offered consultants to work, free, on economic policy with Labour.
.
Arthur Andersen had been refused British government contracts since 1982, when it was implicated in the collapse of the Delorean car manufacturing company. Labour ended that ban after it came to power.
.
The company said in a statement that it did "a relatively small amount" of work for the government and had not been "unusually close" to Mr. Blair's party.
LONDON Opposition legislators in Britain are demanding formal inquiries into contacts between the Labour Party of Prime Minister Tony Blair and executives of the bankrupt Enron Corp., asserting that Enron's lobbying may have wrought policy changes that favored the U.S. energy giant's businesses here.
.
Through a spokesman, Mr. Blair on Monday rejected "absolutely" any suggestion that the government had behaved improperly in its dealings with Enron.
.
But he acknowledged that, on four occasions dating to 1998, government ministers dealing with regulatory or energy issues had met with Enron executives.
.
That was one year after Mr. Blair's party gained power.
.
A Labour party official also acknowledged that the party had accepted about $51,000 from Enron, not in cash but as sponsorship for events.
.
One of the most perilous accusations in British politics is that of "sleaze" - the label attached to officials and legislators who accept cash in return for providing rich people with access to decision-making politicians. The term dogged the closing years of the last Conservative administration before 1997.
.
One of the very first scandals of Mr. Blair's term was a party contribution from Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One car-racing chief. The money was seen as a bid to influence government policy on tobacco advertising.
.
Ralph Hodge, the former chairman of Enron Europe, told a television interviewer late Monday that it had been "custom and practice" to sponsor events to meet ministers, civil servants and legislators.
.
The money "was given in order to gain access and to at least know that you'd met the politicians concerned," he said, "and I do stress it was given to both parties." "Cash for access?" he asked. "No." But he acknowledged "a desire to meet with ministers, civil servants" and legislators.
.
"Certainly sponsoring those events was seen to be positive in that regard," Mr. Hodge said.
.
Mr. Hodge was made a commander of the British Empire, a government-awarded honor in January 2001.
.
Labour party officials said Enron had bought tickets to dinners organized by the party and had helped sponsor a 1998 party congress by footing the $21,000 bill for drinks.
.
Among other payments, the company also spent as much as $11,000 to attend a dinner in 1997. But Labour denied that Enron had made straight cash donations.
.
The Conservative vice chairman, Tim Collins, said that there had been "significant donations" by Enron that had led to "very interesting coincidences" in policy shifts.
.
But David Triesman, the Labour Party general secretary, said, "The idea that a government switches its policy on energy a week after having a gala dinner is really among the more absurd claims I've heard in my political life."
.
It was Mr. Triesman who confirmed that Labour had, however, received the equivalent of $51,000 from Enron in sponsorship of events.
.
The dispute was Page One news in British newspapers Tuesday.
.
"The Enron saga is threatening to stain Labour," the pro-Labour Guardian newspaper said.
.
"Having hammered the Conservatives over sleaze before 1997, Labour should not be surprised to be spattered when the mud starts flying," it said in an editorial.
.
"But given the paucity of the allegations and that its potential investigating body is the Labour-dominated parliamentary Public Administration Committee, none of the dirt is likely to stick," the Guardian said.
.
"The same cannot be said of the Bush White House. What Enron did at Westminster was utterly dwarfed by its actions in Washington."
.
The Enron collapse has become a major story in broadsheet British newspapers and on television news shows. It has been depicted as, potentially, the Bush administration's equivalent of Watergate in the Nixon era or President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
.
To that extent, it has revived the perceptions, suspended after Sept. 11, that the Bush administration is extraordinarily close to the energy business.
.
Mr. Blair's office said that successive ministers, including former Trade Secretaries Peter Mandelson and Stephen Byers and Industry Ministers John Battle and Helen Liddell had met with Enron representatives.
.
But the prime minister had never met Enron executives, his office said.
.
Mr. Byers was present at the formal opening of Enron Europe's offices in London in February 2001.
.
"Yes, Enron representatives have met Government ministers from the Department of Trade and Industry over the course of the years since the government came to power," a spokesman said. "They are not alone in that and at some meetings they were there with representatives of other companies."
.
Trade secretaries play a vital regulatory role in determining whether deals are submitted for antitrust scrutiny.
.
Opposition politicians from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the third party in the British Parliament, have voiced concerns that Enron's purchase in 1998 of the utility Wessex Water had not been referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
.
They have also sought to link Enron's contributions to Labour with a decision in November 2000 to lift a ban on the construction of new gas-fired electric power stations.
.
That decision benefited Enron, which was one of six applicants whose plans for gas-fired power stations had been delayed. Enron had been seeking approval for a 1,200-megawatt station off the southern English coast on the Isle of Grain.
.
Matthew Taylor of the Liberal Democrats also said there had been a close relationship between Mr. Blair's party and the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, Enron's U.S. auditor, which is accused of shredding documents to avoid scrutiny.
.
Mr. Taylor said those ties dated to 1992, when Arthur Andersen offered consultants to work, free, on economic policy with Labour.
.
Arthur Andersen had been refused British government contracts since 1982, when it was implicated in the collapse of the Delorean car manufacturing company. Labour ended that ban after it came to power.
.
The company said in a statement that it did "a relatively small amount" of work for the government and had not been "unusually close" to Mr. Blair's party.
